Our first trip outside of Xi'an

We had a busy weekend. I'll let the girls give you some of the details but wanted to remind myself of the huge gap that exists between cities and rural areas. On Sunday we took a bus trip with a German/Australian group to a nearby town. First we went to a pottery museum and then a temple and finally, to a local wine distribution center. We had a long and interesting day. Most of the time however was spent on the bus and in traffic. The "little town" we went to vist that housed the temple was chuck full of no fewer than 40,000 people...and maybe more. Instead of a relaxing day in the country, we were fighting the crowds. When we stopped and tried to find a bit of space outside the throng, we were almost immediately surrounded by a large group of people who found us (mostly our children) incredibly fascinating to watch. All of the blonde Germans/Australians helped diffuse the attention away from our girls but when all the children were together, it made for almost a zoo like experience for the Chinese...dusty, crowded streets lined with garbage, the best "shaved noodles" we could imagine. We liked our restaurant so much we went back again for noodles. After the hours of crowding, we all needed some wine tasting. After tasting a least ten different bottles and purchasing a case at least each, the adults joined the kids for some games...the flying dutchman..(I think..taught to us by a sweet German woman)...tag and Simon says...on the journey home Marko, the fun-loving German, took out his harmonica and played for the kids. Back at school and work on Monday. Hope everyone had a good weekend too.