It’s been pretty smoggy and dusty so far, today was no real exception. Buildings would sometimes fade beyond the smog at a distance of only 2 or 3 hundred metres, and the heat (upwards of 30 degrees) has been fun to contend with after 6 or so months not venturing above 10 degrees.
After 12 or so hours from Vancouver to Shanghai, I jumped on a domestic flight up to Xi’an to start this epic journey of mistranslations and mystery foods.
Day 1 got off to an interesting start, when I jumped in a cab armed with directions to my hostel only to find out the driver had no idea where I wanted to go because the address was in an english translation of what locals only understand in Chinese characters. After googling some more information I found an address in Chinese that the driver was confident he could get me to. Getting there in one piece was another story altogether; driving at speeds of up to 140 km/h while on the phone, darting in and out of lanes weaving traffic, and funnily enough the closest we came to an accident was driving down a back street at 5km/h whilst lost trying to look for the hostel.
