Day 40:

Fun local festival today!

I got up nice and early today and took a local bus to Jiezhou. Jiezhou is a very small city, but is famous as the possible birthplace of Guan Yu, a fourth (third?) century Chinese general, whose exploits in the "Three Kingdoms" era earned him reverence as a sort of God of War (and a place as a character in lots of video games, like "Dynasty Warriors" and "Destiny of an Emperor"). There is a temple to his honor in Jiezhou called Guandian Miao. It's a neat spot for a day trip, and I was lucky enough to arrive during the annual Guan Yu festival! The festival was very charming in it's localness: outside the temple, the streets were filled with the usual merchants selling the usual clothes and household implements, while inside the dancing and musical performances were charmingly amateurish.

Finishing up my day at the temple, I hopped on a five hour bus to Xi'an, where I am writing from. My hostel is nice, but sort of loud. It's sort of a bar with some beds upstairs. "Drop it like it's hot" is the song of the moment. Oy...