After breakfast, we walked to the Vanguard store (sort of like Walmart) because TongJie and Ezekiel really wanted to go there again before we left Xian. Ezekiel later said that Vanguard was his favorite thing about Xian, ha ha! We got some snacks and the boys each picked out a flip sequin shirt and then wore their new shirts proudly for the rest of the day. We were on the bullet train for a lot of the day today. It was about 4 hours on the bullet train from Xian to Chengdu. We are staying in a really neat Tibetan hotel here, but unfortunately we'll only be here tonight and then we're checking out tomorrow morning. Shortly after arriving at our hotel, our group walked to a hot pot restaurant nearby. We have a new guide, Ray, in Chengdu (Tony stayed in Xian) and also still have Sarah with us. The hot pot restaurant was really fun. I took pictures with the camera, but we didn't take any with the tablet so I can't post them to the blog right now. There were four different tables, and 6 or 7 people sat around each table with a boiling hot pot of soup broth in the middle. The pots were divided into spicy and non-spicy sections. The spicy sections were red with hot peppers and other spices. There was raw meat and vegetables on the tables and you would add them to the boiling broth to cook, then everybody ladled some into their bowls after it was cooked. It was really good, but very spicy, and I even mixed some of the spicy and non-spicy together so it wasn't even full strength! Ray sat at our table and that was nice because he showed us how to do everything. TongJie liked the non-spicy soup and tried some of the shrimp, crab, meatballs, and tofu. He was mostly enthralled with adding things to the "stew," as he kept calling it, and watching everything bubble around. Ezekiel did not even want to try any of the soup, but filled up on fried rice instead. The boys fell asleep right away after getting back to our room and into bed. Tomorrow we get to see the pandas!
We didn't take many pictures with our tablet today I guess, but here are pictures of Ezekiel and TongJie in their new flip sequin shirts from Ezekiel's new favorite store. There is a life-sized yak (not a real one) in the lobby of our hotel but we haven't even taken a picture of that yet.
I am finally catching up on your adventures!! Sounds like you guys are making some amazing memories. :) Oh, and Levi has a flip sequin shirt, too - his is yellow shirt with a red chameleon (that turns to yellow so you "can't see" it, ha ha). Thanks for posting so we can follow along and enjoy, too!
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