Arrived at Xi’an at about 4:30pm. The first impression was the gray, high, solid city wall in front of the train station. My friend was there already to pick me up. Taxi is cheap here. You can go almost everywhere in the city for less than $3 per trip. On the taxi, he then told me something that I’d never expected: he would leave Xi’an in two days. It meant that my guide would leave me here alone. At that time I didn’t know how I could handle for the next few days. I had a huge list of places worth visiting, and without a guide, it would be really hard for me.

After signing up for the conference at Nan Yang hotel, he took me to look for a cheap hotel. It was not far, about 500 meters from Nan Yang hotel, and in front of Jiaotong University, just across the street.

At the dinner later, I met the young but interesting Taiwanese professor. Half an hour later, prof. Shu Chang came. And the chat later was in Chinese. Being as desperate as I was 1 hour before, I didn’t mind leaving, and sat there to listen to the boring and meaningless discussion between them. An hour later, they stopped, and we left the hotel. Prof. Shu and we wandered for some minutes before we headed back to our respective hotels, and I called it a day.