I’m digital camera-less for the moment. Yes. I know….the explanation: I dropped it into a sweet waterfall this morning. At least this beats the story of my last camera’s demise: death by Jack and Diet.

Events that will now only live on in my memory: 1) “Pooh Wonderful, Tastes Good” bag. 2) Terracotta Warriors 3) us dressed in costume as Terracotta Warriors 4) Chinese friends that wanted to take pictures with the craaaazy looking foreigners (being Joee and myself) … we had them use my camera too 4) some of the most picturesque scenery amidst the fog ridden mountains of Cuihuashan while we were hiking.

Regardless, this is definitely a lesson in navigation without any common language amongst the locals. Finding busses is tricky. We’ve had to do a lot of shrugging and pointing to locations on maps. We’re making it work though. Joee and I are also starting to feel how populated China really is. This is after standing literally pit-to-face on the bus back from the countryside, for nearly an hour. Just when you think they can’t possibly squeeze 1 more person on….on hop about 8.

Yesterday after we got back from the Terracotta Warriors (it’s the 8th wonder of the world and actually pretty amazing to see in person!) we went to eat at this place that I forget the name of (which is why I tried to take a picture of the sign…so much for that) that basically meant “big chicken plate” and the font was in the exact “Disney” font…complete with curly “d” and circular “i”. Ha! Too bad for me, nearly everything we ordered was spicy, so I ate a bowl of rice and the sweet and sour pork which was actually really awesome.

We also passed a stinky tofu vendor on the street! I’m actually considering going back to try it. It smelled like that meat place on Armitage in the dead heat of summer. Part sewage/part rot. Do I really want to try this stuff?

I’ve also discovered that I should never, ever enter into any trivia contest. However, we did meet some fun foreigners at the hostel’s bar nearby. One guy was from Chicago! Moved to Xi’an to teach English for a year after graduating college.