Xi'an pt 2

On Saturday the rain stopped and we climbed the city wall of Xi'an. Forty ft high and 30 ft wide, it encircles the inner city for a length of 11 miles. There are turrets and pagodas all along it. Beautifully preserved. In the afternoon we drove an hour to Hu Xian- a mode village of farmers. We separated into 3 groups to stay with a local family. Madame Gao was a lovely sweet 32 yr old with a husband, 11 yo son who lives with her inlaws. Our room was primitive, the bathroom even more so. After a nice dinner in which we used a lot of sign and body language, she took us to the town square where we were given ornate costumes- yellow for the men and red for the women- and we danced with the villagers for an hour. It was a little surreal to do the bunny hop, macarena and hokey pokey with 100 Chinese women. Kathy, our guide, explains so much about present Chinese life. I feel as though we have learned so much this trip.