Xi'an and on and out

We just completed a 2 day visit to the ancient capital of Xi'an, home to a famous battalion of pottery and some rather impressive walls (gotta keep the Huns out if the Great Wall fails, ya know?). Just as all the guide books say, they've really done a wonderful job of maintaining the ancient feel of the city interlaced with modern progress. The massive city walls hold their own against modern buildings.

Beyond that, despite being a hugely-hyped tourist draw, the Terracotta Warriors really were fascinating. I found you really could stare out at them and imagine how the ancient army must have looked and moved.

In fact, in that vein, the Provincial History Museum really had that effect on me as well. Their collection of ancient artifacts was spectacular. They had 3000 year old bronze pieces with barely any corrosion; the works were so pristine that you really could envision them in use and picture the culture that lived with them.

It amazes me how much more of a feeling of a culture you can get from a really excellent museum than from a standard hodge-podge of a collection--you know, like the Met or something. I had a similar experience with the Pergamom Museum in Berlin, but the ability to see such artifacts is few and far between in the US.

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Unfortunately, our stay in Xi'an was shorter than we had planned and I would really have liked to have stayed another day; but here we are in Beijing. The major problem is that our visa expires on Tuesday, and extending it is much harder than we had anticipated. Basically, they want you to reapply for a visa and they hold your passport for a full week of processing. This does not mesh well with travelling; the idea of having to stay in the same city for a week--with no passport--is not appealing.

Beyond that, we're tired. Oh so tired. We've crossed four weeks now, and our ridiculous pace is taking its toll. So we've faced the decision of staying put in Beijing for a week of senseless bureaucracy, or leaving the country by Tuesday the 10th.

There is quite a lot we would still like to see in China, but we've pretty much hit all the major categories. There are more scenic and holy mountains to climb, more ancient Buddhist carvings to look at, many many more great cities to see (we skipped Shanghai and the entire East Coast for heaven's sake), and a lot more food to eat, but we've seen a broad swath of all of it in this inland-focused trip.

But yet, it would feel like defeat to come home from the trip early (at least in my ego-ridden mind), so we are staring down the dilemma in the only logical way.

We're gonna hit Hawaii on the way home.

Unfortunately, the only possible itinerary called for a 6 hour layover in Tokyo. So we're going to stretch that to a 78 hour layover (and I fear the price shock). After all, I don't have anything on my calendar until, oh, late May or so. For those of you keeping score, I think we get back now on April 23d or something.