Dennis writing today.  From years of traveling around the world, we know that every travel day can’t be perfect!   (Note from Diana … SHE LOVES the stories from the imperfection when travelling)

On Monday, we (and our 30 travel group members) had an early 7:30 am checkout at our lovely hotel in Beijing.  Instructions from the head tour guide Mary (known as the Dictator)… eat breakfast, get out of your room, move your luggage to the lobby and board the bus for the airport by 7:45 am.  TODAY is moving day!

TODAY was a “lost travel day” going from Beijing to Xi’an.  Remember the old adage “hurry up and wait”?  Especially typical for things that occur (especially travel) in China.  Can you believe we left our hotel in Beijing at 7:45 am and didn’t arrive at our Xi’an hotel until 5:45 pm?  It took 10 HOURS… really?

EVERYTHING was slow TODAY… massive Monday morning traffic in China delayed our bus transport so it took 2 hours to go from the hotel to the airport.  Many people in airport check-in lines, very critical airport security (including disposal of my small liquid bottles and vodka that normally cause no problems), several hours waiting at the gate for the flight, everyone sitting in the plane on the tarmac for 1 hour before takeoff, the flight arrived 1.5 hours late into Xi’an, delays deplaning upon arrival and a tiring 1 hour drive from the airport to the  hotel.

We already MISS our time in Beijing… it was much more EFFICIENT!

To top things off, our assigned hotel room had numerous stains (from leaks) around the large picture windows.  The room was musty and there was evidence of mold.  Yuck!  I had to negotiate a room change to another floor and section of the hotel.  We moved all of our gear and unpacked.  Add another hour of wasted time!

The Jin Jiang International Hotel in Xi’an was supposed to be 5 star rated.  It’s a beautiful structure and lobby, but unfortunately it has deteriorated over the years since it was built.  We would give it a 3 star rating.  We visited the German theme beer garden restaurant and found the staff in total disarray.  Patrons (some from our travel group) were waiting a long time to be served and complaining to the staff about the food.  The restaurant only had TWO menus in English.  We were told a lengthy wait could be possible until an English menu would become available.  We decided to leave after figuring out that dinner might take 3 hours!

The only other restaurant open in the hotel offered a traditional Cantonese menu.  Boy oh boy… more Chinese food!  Several members of our travel group were seated and awaiting their food items.  The waitress came to our table with 2 large iPads from which we scrolled through 50 pages of food items described with pictures.  After waiting a VERY long time to receive our noodle soup, we could only eat about half of the meal.  This noodle soup was inferior to the noodle soup at our hotel in Beijing.  Remember the beautiful, yummy noodle soup pic that Diana posted?  At the hotel in Beijing, I enjoyed noodle soup EVERY day at the breakfast buffet.

But all was not lost ….  at least we got some beer in these great steins.  Didn’t quite seem to go along with the Cantonese theme, but what the heck!

As I said… not every travel day is perfect!  We LOVE being in China and feel very blessed to have this travel adventure.  Today was a day which required patience and laughter throughout the day (and night)!  Tomorrow will bring a new adventure…

(NOTE FROM  DIANA:  Dennis did a great job being “seaweed” today.  He just went with the flow …)