Day 2 (1)

August 22, 2010 - Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China

Xiao Liu had helped me quite a bit the day before, showed me around a little, showed me where to find the market. She told me that I could register with the school on Monday morning, and she said she would meet me in the lobby of my hotel to take me over to meet with my teacher. I had Sunday all to myself. The question was whether I would be brave enough to venture out on my own.

Xiao Liu had told me to meet her at 8:30am. My room, as I have previously stated, has no clock. Not even an alarm clock. I decided that an alarm clock was excuse enough to leave my room. That, and I wanted to each at the KFC I saw on my way to the bank. My first Chinese-Style American restaurant.

As I left my hotel, I happened to glance over and see a market across the street. I recalled Xiao Liu telling me that there was a market near my hotel, but I hadn't noticed it until then. I decided to take a detour and see if that shop had alarm clocks. The shop was closer, for one, and yes it meant missing out on KFC for today, but, honestly, I'm in a country where my usable vocabulary is probably less than 100 words at the moment. KFC could wait if it meant being closer to my hotel room.

I walked in the shop. The store was long and narrow, with short shelves on either side of a center aisle. I walked passed the food section, giving it a quick once over and made my way toward the second half of the shop which seemed to consist of home goods and toiletries. I stopped for a moment and asked a shopgirl for the other item I had gone out in search of: "razors 在那儿？"("where are razors?"). I added a bit of shaving-my-face pantomime to help things along. She laughed a little and pointed me in the right direction. That's the thing about people in China, I try to say what little I can, and whether they understand or not, they seem to be amused by me. I tell you, a smile is the best ambassador.

So, I bought a Gillette reusable razor with two replacement heads. Cost? 11.50RMB, or around $1.70. Seriously, a razor in the US is, like, 10 dollars. Replacement heads are $15! I was fully expecting to spend a fair amount of money on a razor because I needed one. I'm glad I didn't buy any before I left home.


Gillette Razor. Worked great and super cheap here.

I then went back through and looked at the food section more slowly. The day before, at the other market, I just wanted to explore every little thing, but I didn't want to bore Xiao Liu, so I grabbed a few things quickly. I went down every aisle, looked at every section. I thought about getting some instant coffee, but I looked at the price and it seemed too expensive. I need to adjust to this change. When something says 30.50RMB it means $4.45, not $30.50. Its a big change for me. I decided to pick up a few more snacks, largely because I totally need more Chinese junk food. I only bought a couple of things:


Granny Smith Apple Fanta. Not as good as the Peach Fanta, unfortunately. Tasted like a Jolly Rancher.


Minute Maid Aloe-Ade. As it turns out, its grape-flavored. Like, Muscadine grape. The aloe is floating in the grape juice like pulp in orange juice.


Lays Blueberry Chips. They taste like blueberry toaster waffles. Unfrozen, but not cooked. With a potato aftertaste.


Lays Numb & Spicy Hot Pot Flavor. Weird name, but hands down the BEST chips I've ever had. Slightly sweet, spicy, and just delicious. Nothing like this in America. Ally would love them.


Hazel Nut Treats. These looked really good, and I recognized the hazelnut on the package, so they must be good. I figured they were some kind of sweet hazel nut treat, but I failed to read the description...


...they were "Barbaque Flavored." Yeah. The taste is a little like a cookie with peanut butter on it, with a hint of bbq sauce right at the end.

The little shop did not, however, sell alarm clocks. At least I don't think they did. In any case, I went back to my room to unload the things I'd bought. I decided that I needed to go to the other market to buy a clock. I set out, walked down the two or three streets that lead to Chang An Road (长安路,lit. "Long Peace Road"), the main road in this part of the city. I was cautious of cars as I tried to navigate the distance. It takes roughly the same time to walk to the larger market as it does to walk from my house to Kilwin's.

I made it to the market, went up the the escalators to the third floor, and searched around for clocks. I found a salesgirl and just as I was going to say "钟在那儿?" ("where are clocks?"), I blanked on the word for clock. I pointed at my wrist and said "clocks 在那儿？" to no avail. I then mimed sleeping and waking up. The salesgirl laughed and took me to a display with a few small alarm clocks, all of which seemed to be intended for children. I tried to ask her if they had any others, perhaps one's that plugged into the wall (all those on display were battery operated). She didn't understand, so I just settled on one.

There is a complicated process for buying some items in Chinese stores. There are probably hundreds of people working in the larger supermarket on Chang An Road. Each person seems to have knowledge about only a small section of the store. Certain display items are not marked with a price, so whomever is in charge of that small section of the store had to write up a slip with the item information and price and lead you to a checkout. The items that need slips very greatly from stuffed animals to alarm clocks to, I assume, big ticket items. The clock set me back about $3.50 but required a staff member to lead me through the store to purchase it.

For lunch, as promised, I had KFC. It seems to just be called KFC, not confusing Kentucky Fried Chicken or Kitchen Fresh Chicken, just the anonymous-sounded KFC.


KFC in Xi'an. The exterior of the KFC on Chang An Road.


KFC in Xi'an. The interior of the KFC on Chang An Road.

The menu had a number of items on it, with maybe 6 sort of combo meals. The first was some kind of meat covered in BBQ sauce on a bun. The second was what appeared to be a crispy chicken sandwich. The third was two snack wrap style chicken burritos with crispy chicken and cucumbers in a red sauce. The fourth combo offered what appeared to be either a fish filt sandwich or a sandwich with a patty made of popcorn-sized shrimp. The image on the order board offered a cross-section view of the sandwich showing tiny little pink shrimp inside. The fifth combo was some kind of burrito, at least that's what it looked like. Who knows? I'm almost positive they don't have burritos here. The last was what I assumed were chicken wings, but looking back I'm not sure. What's odd is that the restaurant didn't seem to offer actual fried chicken. There was a family bucket available, but it was a combination of a number of the other menu items listed above...in a bucket.

I had a bit of trouble ordering. I settle on Combo #2, but the woman at the register thought I wanted 2 Cokes. After a moment, a young man came up behind me and cleared things up for me. I thanked him and asked him to tell them I wanted it to go. He didn't seem to understand that, so I just smiled at him, thanked him again, and sat down with my tray.


Combo #2. My meal at the KFC on Chang An Road in Xi'an.

The first odd thing about the combo would have to be the side item. There was some discussion about side item at the register, but my Chinese is lacking, so I wasn't sure how to decided. I believe the would they used was "salad." The "salad" consisted of corn, carrots, and cucumber in mayonaise. The second odd thing, and this didn't bother me so much but it might be off putting to others, is that the chicken sandwich seemed to be made entirely of dark meat. Dark meat is my favorite, so it was OK by me. Also, I think it was made of the thigh.


Combo #2. After a few bites.

This did illicit a moment of shock on my part. Being from America, I am used to the all-white meat chicken sandwich, or at the very least that white spongey stuff they claim to be chicken meat. In any case, chicken meat in chicken sandwiches are white. Therefore, after my first bite I though "Huh...this is raw." I don't think it was, I just wasn't accustomed to it.

The meal was quite pricey by Chinese standards, about 22.50RMB. That's a little more than $3, so, really, its less than half of what I usually pay. I decided to finish my American meal with an American treat: Ice cream.


Chang An Road. Hey! Its Baskin Robbins!

I went into the Baskin Robbins just down the block and looked around a bit. The flavors were barely recognizable and the names seemed to have zero correlation. I settled on...


Global Cooling Crunch. I still don't know what that means.

Global Cooling Crunch. Whatever that is. The ice cream was good, but comparatively expensive at 16RMB ($2.35). Plus, the portion was tiny. By American standards anyway:


Global Cooling Crunch. My tiny scoop of ice cream.

Oh, well. Back to my room. And for dinner? How about some street food?

To be continued...

Hayden