My tour guide gave me a special 'treat' to munch on along the way to the place where we were to stop for lunch. It was some kind of hard, baked, biscuit type thing with a filling of ground peanuts. After a few bites, I gave up eating it. I didn't like the flavour or the texture.It's a habit here that the guide and driver eat separately from the tourists, so I had a solitary lunch that they had pre-ordered for me...I'm used to eating by myself, so that's no problem. The food in Xi'an is slightly different again and noodles seem to be something that is served more frequently. Soup is also served, but it arrives second last just before the desert, which is often fruit, such as watermelon.
In this particular case, I had some kind of beef and pepper (red and green), onion dish, egg fried rice, a bowl of noodles swimming in oil, and more greens of some kind. The egg drop soup was good, though not very flavourful....I hoped I guessed right though that having no flavour meant it didn't have any MSG in it. I was also served Jasmine tea.
I ate the rice alright and the beef dish was quite delicious, however, the meat was suspiciously red and I tried not to think about hearing somewhere that horse meat is much redder than beef.
Before I was served, a young 'chef' approached my table swinging some kind of noodle dough to stretch it like one might strudel. A specialty I guess, which one could order for an extra 10 rmb/yuan.
However, after watching him prance around the restaurant flapping the dough in every which direction like a skipping rope, I could only imagine what 'extra' germs and dirt might have gathered on it, and quickly discarded any thought of eating it.
When I arrived in Xi'an, I found the ancient capital very dreary and gray, many buildings either the colour of dirt or brown, like dark sand. The poor areas are the same here as in any other country, like Cairo, Mexico, Spain, Jordan and even those poverty stricken areas in London, England. Many people work by hand, with shovels and axes and saws, not with much machinery of any kind. There is plenty of manpower, I guess.
Sometimes I thought it was the pollution that made everything seem so desolate, but even when the sun shines, 
the buildings look shabby and old, and rightly so, because they are. The countryside seemed a little better, but still the pollution hung over everything castinga gray pallor over everything.
the buildings look shabby and old, and rightly so, because they are. The countryside seemed a little better, but still the pollution hung over everything castinga gray pallor over everything. 
During my travels I was often passing through the countryside, but always on freeways and highways where there was nowhere to get off to the side and stop to take photographs.
There were huge fields, and farmers preparing their soil and unsheathing various bushes, trees, and perennials for spring. There were often tiny brick places where they lived, but I never managed to get anything decent in the way of photographs, as there were always trees and bushes planted along both sides of the roads, so one couldn't see beyond them clearly. The same 
as for the small villages we passed along the way.
as for the small villages we passed along the way.
