Rain in Xi'an

As you could probably guess, I'm in Xian right now and it's raining. It's a little cold outside too and my fingers are feeling a little stiff. I've finally left Beijing. I did absolutely nothing on my last day. I really should've left the day before I think.

I walked around trying to find cheap internet but couldn't find any internet places. And then I did find one and it was the same as the hostel. Then I saw a giant temple high in the sky so I ventured over there and it was just a phony temple atop a giant shopping centre so I became a bit disillusioned.

It's so much stranger traveling by myself than I has been any other time. I haven't even been traveling very long but for some reason it feels like I've been in China a lot longer than 10 days. Actually only 9 days. My emotions have been all over the place. I've been bored and lonely, I've been happy and find myself laughing at nothing really (maybe I'm becoming insane). I was going to go to a Taoist temple but once I got there I really didn't have any interest. I think it was the ticket booth with all these photos and people just standing around inside the temple in faux little Taoist outfits. Then I went and sat down on a slab of concrete beside some grass and read "The Essence of Buddhism." I'd actually read a few chapters while I had some coffee too. Some parts of Buddhism make a lot of sense to me. Well, this guy's interpretation at least.

It was talking about how everything is connected because nothing arises spontaneously but has to come from somewhere. No man is an island kind of stuff really. I'm thinking that maybe I am a bit disconnected. I don't know if I'm just feeling that way because when I walk down the street I don't see people who look like me or people who can speak the same language. I also can't read anything. I should've made this post after I'd just read the book. I was going to actually but couldn't find the cheap internet place. The book also talked about repetitive emotions. It was similar to what I'd seen in "What the bleep do we know." About how if you always have negative thoughts you'll just always be negative. I really need to work on thinking more positively. That's part of the reason I've been laughing for no reason. Well, just chuckling to myself really. It's not really about nothing either, just things that have happened to me or to other people. I also find my self portraits in front of great monuments to be both hilarious and depressing. Depends on my mood.

The other thing about Buddhism that I learnt was that things have no permanence or what the book called intrinsic existence (I think). I'd already learned that nothing has permanence through my rotten July or was it August. I think late July to mid-August I had my iPod crash, my bike stolen, my external hard drive fall to the floor, and some other things that I don't recall right now. I also lost some interest in this newer passport of mine after my treasured one went up in flames outside of Ithaca. I kind of just expect to lose things now so I don't put that much value in them. I'm sure that seems depressing.

I've also been having different thoughts about my relationships with other people. Actually, I don't really feel like going into that at the moment. Maybe another raining day in some other city.

So after reading, I went back to the hostel and sat in the lounge. I kind of had a conversation with a group of people. I mean I did, but those that know me know that I don't contribute much to group conversations. I'd put myself at 10% of the words in a group of 4-5 which isn't that bad for me.

It's so funny being from Canada. I don't know why me being Canadian automatically makes me interested in someone's cousin living in Halifax. Maybe if Canada were smaller and Halifax weren't a 7 hour flight away. I actually don't know how far it is considering there actually aren't any direct flights. I should start doing that with Americans. Oh you're from California, I've been to Detroit. Never happens. I ended up taking a taxi to the train stations with these 2 girls. I left the hostel at 5:30 and we got to the train station at 7 right as my train was leaving. Beijing traffic is horrible. So I missed my train and was going to go to Xian with these 2 girls. I didn't have much interest in Pingyao so I wasn't too upset aside from the wasted ticket and money. I didn't even pay them back for my share of the taxi. I had to take a later train. I thougt I was getting a hard sleeper but instead I just got a hard seat. The train cleared out a little after 2 hours so I was able to get a row of seats to myself. This Chinese family tried to tell me what was going on. It would be so much better if I were fluent in at least one of the Chinese dialects. But alas, I have become like a dog so only points and gestures have any meaning for me. This guy gave me a bottle pillow. A plastic bottle wrapped in newspaper. I used it for awhile. I managed to sleep a little since I remember having some weird dream. I don't remember much of it now of course.

Xi'an is the city of the Terra Cotta soldiers but they are out of town somewhat and I'm feeling a lack of motivation to get there on my own so I'll probably book a tour for tomorrow and go on to Chengdu tomorrow night. It might not be possible. I guess we'll have to see.

I haven't decided how I'll get back to Korea either. My previous plan is a bit workless being that I've had confirmation of my suspicion that the road from Pakistan to China has been destroyed by the earthquake. There are also no border crossings between India and Myanmar for non-residents. So I'll either be stuck in Nepal or India. Unless I somehow go through Pakistan and then Iran and Afghanistan or something but something tells me that it's not the best idea for non-muslim me. Plus it'd take so long. I could handle a few days in Pakistan but I don't imagine things would go all that smoothly in Afghanistan.