Food Poisoning, China Edition

04/10/13 

Despite being only £20 a night the bed in our hotel is insanely comfortable! The sheets are soft, the pillows are perfect and the duvet isn’t too light but isn’t too heavy. I’m not one to get too excited about beds, unless it’s my lovely bed in Baylands, but after two months in China I can really appreciate a good bed. There’s nothing technically wrong with my bed in Beijing but they don’t seem to have fitted sheets here, so every night I wake up, wrapped in my scratchy and cheap flat bed sheet. So getting through a night with the sheet remaining tucked in is a great victory for me. But I digress. Today we woke up nice and early for our buffet breakfast! I love a good breakfast but I must say, the options were severely limited. Despite being an international chain hotel the breakfast was purely Chinese style. Noodles, rice and some weird chicken sausages were on the menu. There were a few slices of horribly sweet bread and we managed to drain a glass of orange juice to accompany our pitiful meal. 

We then put the thought of cold rice to the back of our minds and headed out to see the world. Armed only with our Lonely Planet map and a camera we got lost. The maps in the Lonely Planet Beijing and Xi’an books are completely crap and have been of absolutely no use! Determined, we pressed on in search of the Muslim quarter.  Apparently the Hui community (Chinese Muslims) have been here since the 7^th Century and after following the little white hats, we found some insanely busy streets. It was worth fighting through the crowds to see what the Muslim Quarter has to offer; we saw all kinds of street vendors and all kinds of food, most of it fairly questionable looking. These were definitely the busiest streets I have ever seen and while my pet peeve has got to be the pushy and rude nature of Chinese people, it was worth it!

The smallest kitten ever!

Bread, you're so beautiful!

Dogs?Sheep?Deer?

 

Before we had even found the Grand Mosque we started to feel sick so after grabbing a sneaky Starbucks we went straight to the hotel. Unfortunately we didn’t venture much father as we both felt pretty rubbish and Rory spent the entire day throwing up. After six months in South East Asia where I threw up almost every day I wish I could say I was by Rory’s side, comforting him, but really I was writing this Blog! Sorry pal! In an attempt to make something of the evening we tried to find the Xi’an branch of Dunkin’ Donuts. (You do like donuts! Yum Yum.) But after getting lost, again, we explored some ghetto fabulous streets, came back to the hotel, threw up some more, listened to Christmas music (because Christmas always makes you feel better) and then we watched The Prince of Egypt (because cartoon musicals with a religious theme always make you feel better). Exciting times I know!