Branching out and blending: Austin in China

Austin came to visit me! After nearly 10 months in Asia, somebody finally made the trek to this side of the world.  It was a pretty stellar 3 weeks. We spent some time in Yinchaun, went to the mountains and he watched Netflix while I babysat..err taught English. Having him here was just as awesome as it sounds. 

We also took an overnight train to Xi’an, famous for the Terracotta Army. The Terracotta Warriors were built in about 200 BC by a 13 year old emperor who was so terrified of death, he needed a fake army with over 8,000 soldiers and hundreds of horses and chariots to be buried with him (no seriously). 

The army was pretty cool…but not nearly cool enough for people to call it the 8^th wonder of the world (that should be Angkor Wat in Cambodia). Most of our time was spent buying souvenirs for Austin, and hunting down the nearest sandwich for me.  Yinchuan has two restaurants with western food: KFC and Pizza Hut. So, naturally when presented with a weekend outside of this city, I established a Chinese food ban from our diets. Austin didn’t fight me for a second.

The coolest part might have been successfully blending in as real Terracotta Warriors. 

Culinary highlights of Xi’an included me inhaling a subway foot long sandwich in about 2 ½ minutes…my first sandwich in almost 4 months... and spending probably ¼ of my paycheck on Starbucks.

... and eating french fries and an oreo  Mcflurry from McDonalds.

I promise we got a little bit of Eastern culture into our days, I just ensured they were adequately alternated with Starbucks and sandwich breaks.