in which i type deliriously for a few minutes then shower and sleep

we're at a hostel in xi'an, after a (get this) 26 hour train ride from Guilin. intense. where did i leave off?
we did our English corner thing, and it was a blast. i got a table full of 20-30-somethings, and we talked about everything from media blockade and the post-WW2 american attitude to changing gender roles in a home situation to why white people don't like to eat fish heads ("but the head is delicious!") i made fast friends with a few of my students, and some email addresses were exchanged. everyone kept saying that if i come back, i would be a "very popular teacher", largely because i do not have the inscrutable British accent carried by most of the volunteers (I told the students that I couldn't understand the Brits, either- which sadly is often true), and also because i'm so darn "ke'ai" (cute) and smile a lot. (halfway through, 3 of the women lean in and conspiratorially whisper- "do you have boyfriend? we think he must be very lucky.") it was a good conversation- the first time i'd really gotten to sit down with anyone in China and discuss their home and mine. (most of my interaction has been "hello! hello! 4 yuan! hello!") after we finally disbanded (an hour late because we were having fun) i listened to jorgen's table, where another volunteer was waving a black market copy of Wild Swans and trying to argue political history in a country where his "facts" are not accepted as such, which was both fascinating (to see the disparity of information) and embarrassing (the guy talked as if he were addressing fluent children rather than intelligent but linguistically limited young adults, with a rather smug aura of "bringing enlightenment" or something... it irritated me).
we left yangshuo the next day. i tried to leave a texas bandana for one of my students, but the head teacher didn't know her (She'd only been enrolled a week). we hit a bus for Guilin (approx. 2 hours), bought tickets to xi'an (leaving at 6 pm), and had 5 hours to kill. we rode the number 100 bus (open topped double decker) arbitrarily around the city (1.20 yuan) to take in the lay of the land. on the return route we stopped at an arbitrary pagoda tower and waterway, which turned out to be a park (10 yuan admission), seemingly a night hotspot but open during the day. we wandered through pagoda style buildings and bridges, and i followed the sound of what turned out to be a saxaphone playing something incredibly chromatic. we were invited in to a building when jorgen tried to take a picture through a window, and wound up having a long conversation with a shandong university music teacher (i forget the instrument, but it's the chinese equivalent of a pipe or clarinet kind of thing) who was playing sax (his english name was Dave Panda, but he spoke no english). as a result, i got to play a nearby guqin (kind of like a koto- long plucked strings over a box) and a sort of hammered dulcimer. we had a broken conversation (showed him how to pronounce some jazz standard titles) then continued on our way. got back to the station and lined up for the train (stampeding is common here- a few people move to line up and everybody rushes into place, 30 minutes early). we talked to a man and his tiny daughter who was learning english in school- "how do you do? i am so-so", who mentioned when we asked that the train was 26 hours, which perturbed us slightly (we'd been expecting to arrive morningish).

the train ride was hilarious. we had standing room only tickets, but were given two leftover seats (presumably because we stood out, also because we were going all the way to xi'an, unlike most of the standers). we sat by some nice people- i pulled out my embroidery floss to make a knotted bracelet and immediately was the focus of attention for like 6 women on the train. we talked to one old and one middle aged women in chinese, and i started to show one of them how to make the bracelet (she picked out floss colors and started, but was forced to move back when the guard came around to check tickets). a young stylish woman from Changsha (the 3 AM train stop) swooped in and took her place, and we talked to her for a long time with another man from closer to xi'an. the first woman eventually wound up with the bracelet i made (she was asleep when i finished, so i gave it to the older woman, who passed it on), which was good. the young lady made me a little Chinese knotted thing with a large stone bead on the end (she had a bag of them in her purse). later a young girl and her mother came over and finished a bracelet i'd started. the two of them and the father were on the train for most of the ride, down to the last two hours out of xi'an. most of the people we met were very patient with our lack of language skills, and found all sorts of creative ways to ask and explain things. everybody shared everything they had with us and with one another- we were given apples, asian pears, lychee gel candy, chewing gun, weird chinese sausage spam-equivalent, swiss cake rolls, water, and something resembling a madeleine over the course of the ride, which was good, because the alternative was the overpriced dining cart making occasional rounds through the train. we made friends with some of the officials (one women, whom we initially thought was threatening to kick us off the train because we wouldn't buy small plastic stools before we had seats, really liked the knotted bracelets we were making and gave jorgen a chinese name that turns out to be a cheap beer brand.
made friends with a xi'an local in the last hour or so- a 19 year old boy whose family is in guilin but he lives and works in xi'an. he likes linkin park and gave us bad info about the bus schedule, but was generally nice. we stood in line for an hour to buy tickets out (we wanted real seats this time)- we'll be headed to beijing to arrive on friday, so we'll see the terra cotta warriors tomorrow.
the xi'an train station was pretty seedy, but the city is beautiful at night- the city walls are still intact, and lit pagodas blossom from the tops. there is neon here, but not to the slick modernity of HK or Shanghai- the city has a vibrant feel. all through the second half of the train ride we passed the yellow silt mountains, the peaked doors bored into the rock where people still live- very deeply a Silk Road city. we didn't check into our hostel until 11:30, then went in search of food- steamed corn and a bag of mini- baozi of indeterminate filling.
i could spend a long time here. i think after tomorrow I will hope to come back for longer. people we've talked to have mixed opinions of xi'an- the musician in the park hates it. one of my students loves it. we'll see.