through the looking glass

gregor and noz had birthdays around the same time; to celebrate, a half dozen 18 year olds and I accosted Xi’an for the weekend.

recommended ::

Bell Tower Hostel. Gorgous staff (well, except for crazy manager lady, duck and cover). Volunteer ‘R’ (name witheld to protect the innocent, if you go you’ll not be able to miss her) is officially the first Chinese woman I’ve met with full blown sarcasm, how could I not adore her. clean, cozy beds (dorm 30/night in 8 person room, high season rate), clean bathrooms, superb showers. and lovely western breakfast with proper coffee at only 5 kuai a cup.

Babyface. ok, so the drinks were a bit pricey by tianshui standards, and the whole ’spend 400 kuai if you want one of the cool big booths on the balcony’ I could probably live without. but as we spent a lot more than that on drinks anyway I suppose it didn’t matter much, and who can argue with a place that has a huge room playing gloria gainor’s ‘I will survive’ and a smaller back area with house music.

the gay bar. I can’t remember the name, I couldn’t begin to tell you where it is, but I met the most realistic looking drag queens. and cheap beer. and a playground outside. cool.

thanks but no thanks ::

Feelings Bar. such a great name, so promising. but as I walked to the door I literally ran away screaming ‘run away, run away!’ at the frignteningly deathly kareoke sounds emitting from within.

also worth noting
the pizza at both the above and the other newish hostel a bit west of the drum tower (on west road, past mcdonalds) were brilliant, and the caesar salad at the latter was almost die-for good.

the 24 hour tea shop near the south gate does not in fact serve food 24 hours, but the mcdonalds on south road does

the 24 hour ktv, also on south road, appears to be not so much 24 hours anymore. or so said the face of the burly bouncer we encountered at 5am.

pics added in migrations but once again I didn’t use the cam as much as I should have. aah, well.

overall, pretty much the only chinese thing about the weekend was the fact that we were, you know, in china at the time. not bad to have one of those every now and again, really.