The next morning we had a bright and early flight to Xian. We arrived and were informed that our drive to Hushuan Mountain, which was supposed to take 2.5 hours, would now take 4-5 hours because the highway was closed for construction. As we wouldn’t have time to go to our hotel first as originally planned, we changed into hiking clothes in the parking lot and loaded up the van. I don’t mind long car rides (as long as I’m not the one driving) and I was kind of excited to get a better perspective on the country life of China than what you can see from the side of a highway. It took some time to get out of city-looking areas until we came to what was really the countryside. There were fields of beautiful yellow flowers (for making ripseed oil) and also orchards of blooming fruit trees. There were people on the sides of the roads selling strawberries, and numerous vendors selling bottled water for truckers (all the truckers were diverted off the closed highway as well. This led to congested two-lane roads and relentless honking.)
We stopped in a restaurant in a small town and as usual, got a private room in the back. The Chinese are big into private rooms in restaurants, and being westerners, we always get them (you could be the most unimportant person in the world back home, but if you’re white in China you are treated as a VIP all the time). It’s kind of nice to be able to eat without the entire restaurant watch you try to eat with chopsticks. Our tour guide, Tony, ordered for us and as we waited I was watching some goats out the back window of the restaurant. Eventually our food came out, and we when the lamb dish arrived, the goats started baa-ing like crazy. It was bizarre trying to eat lamb while hearing baa-ing in the background. It’s like they knew their friend had just been cooked up and served to us. We had ordered a chicken dish, and it never came out so we asked Tony what happened to it. He told us to wait a minute, and about 30 minutes later a whole, friend chicken came out. We swear that they went and killed it out back then fried it up for us. The highlight of the meal was when we dared Kyle to eat the head of the chicken and he took a big bite of its brain. I told you he and Cas will eat anything.
Picture: Kyle and the chicken head
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