Category Archives: 西安

Over the last two years, I’ve spent many, many hours in this airport lounge in Xi’an.  Good times, good times.

Well, I’m a fucking idiot.  For domestic Chinese flights, I’m always careful to book either business or first class.  Because giant. Looks like I slipped and ended up with an economy ticket for the Xi’an to Ürümqi leg of my trip … Continue reading →

 Well, I’m back in Xi’an yet again.   The pollution was so bad that you could actually see it inside the airport itself.

There was no direct flight from Jiayuguan to Shanghai that arrived at a reasonable hour, so I decide to stay over in Xi’an.  (Yes.  My fifth visit to Xi’an, my third in a week.) I had booked a place called the … Continue reading →

 The lounge at the Xi’an airport has li’l 肉夹馍 (ròujīamó)!   It’s a Xi’an specialty and the name literally translates as “meat folder bun.”

Today is National Day, the first day of the week-long 黄金周 (“Golden Week”) holiday. I’m back in Xi’an.  (“Well, at least you’re out of the tree,” Dr. Grant reassures me.) Have a four hour layover here before heading even farther west … Continue reading →

For my second visit, I captured this terracotta warrior backlit by the low winter sun.  A Winter Soldier, if you will.

Like that song on The Beatles’s White album.

Xi’an cemetery in late autumn.   Cemetery with distant smokestack.

This is Xi’an’s Big Goose Pagoda:  And this is Xi’an’s Little Goose Pagoda: You would think Maverick would be the one who deserves a pagoda, but we couldn’t find one for him, big or little.

In Xi’an, Debbie & stayed at the Grand Mercure, a converted Communist Party mansion which is now part of a complex of western hotels cordoned off in the heart of the city.  I like to refer to the complex as “the … Continue reading →