Good Girls head West to go East to China

Invited to spend 15 days exploring Shaanxi Province in China, Debi and Judy traveled from Florida to Los Angeles and then onto Xiamen, China via Xiamen Airlines. Bleary-eyed but eager, we flew on to Xi'an, the center and capital of Shaanxi Province.

Too late for the scheduled lunch, our group of 12 writers/photographers were taken to the Forest of Stone Stele (Beilin) Museum, where the director was waiting to give us a tour and a gang of Chinese paparazzi were waiting to photograph and video our every move.

Strange feeling for all members of our now formal delegation as we are invariably on the "taking" side of the camera.

Normally it is a serene environment with its stately, primarily Tang dynasty carved books and essays and sculptures of  stone surrounded by meticulously designed and maintained landscaping.

Daxia dynasty horse, circa 424.

All too soon we were politely herded into the meeting room for a formal meeting with our host, Mr. Gao Zhangyin, Director of the Shaanxi Provincial Tourism Development Commission.

We were each presented with beautiful Lian Pu wooden painted masks, a Shaanxi regional specialty. One look at the exquisite presentation box and our hearts broke: no way would the whole thing fit in our luggage for the trip home. 

Think the Good Girls were feeling grubby after 35 hours of non-stop travel? 

 Just 

 wait.

From there our bus headed for the Crowne Plaza Xi'an hotel where we are guests at the kick-off banquet for the Xi'an Silk Road International Tourism Expo, which opens the next morning and yes, we will be honored guests there, too. Champagne and living "terracotta warriors" greeted us in elegant surroundings.

Imagine sitting at a beautifully set, prominent table in a ballroom filled with tastefully dressed, bathed people when at this point, we were 40-plus hours into our first day - 

 The presentation of Silk Road history in vignettes kept us interested and awake.

Photos by Debi Lander.

 - and knowing it would be a good four hours more before hitting our hotel.

Now THAT'S grubby.




Disclosure: While we were hosted and had our itinerary set by Shaanxi Provincial Tourism Development, the Good Girls paid our own way to and from China.