Recap of China trip, part deux

I'm writing from the comfort of my cousin's living room in Taipei, Taiwan. It's nice to finally be in a somewhat permanent state of residence, rather than always changing hotels as we did in China. I thought I might be tired of being a foreigner after the China trip, but I think I've adjusted quickly to life in Taiwan and so I don't feel homesick yet.

So, the remainder of the China trip:

5/24

Three members of the group are fairly ill with food poisoning. Myself and another are sick but not as serious and one is completely fine. The healthier ones venture out to find drinks and light food at Carrefour. Since I was the only one of the group that ventured out who had Mandarin knowledge, I was in charge of finding the way to Carrefour (a Wal-Mart-like store). Spent about 15 minutes staring at the advertisement on the road to figure out the directions (cursed simplified script! I'm familiar with traditional characters only!). Tried asking for directions but the girl I asked wasn't very helpful and told me I should take a taxi. >_<>_<
-From Xian train station we catch a taxi to our 3-star hotel in Xian. A really nice change of pace after some of the hotels in which we stayed. The ranking system in China isn't on par with the one in the U.S.. I'm not sure what category Holiday Inn falls into, but I would say a Chinese 3-star hotel is comparable to a Holiday Inn.
-Eat dinner at nearby restaurant
-Return to hotel to rest after an exhausting day. One member of the group goes to get a foot massage. He discovers the massage place is a cover for "other services". He runs away after getting foot massage.

5/28

-Eat breakfast at hotel
-Walk around Xian, go tour Bei Lin/Stone tablet forest (a misnomer since all the tablets have been moved indoors)
-Eat lunch at a Taiwan-style restaurant. Lesson: don't eat Taiwan-style food in China, it's nothing like Taiwan food and not that good either.
-Hao has digital camera stolen out of his pocket while purchasing popsicle from a stand. China's pickpockets are very skilled; even though he felt the hand in his pocket and responded as quickly as possible, the camera was already gone. Probably passed onto another partner or two. Ironically, Hao is the only native Chinese person of the group.
-Kill time in hotel lobby while friend files police report. There isn't much one can do when something is stolen and the likelihood of getting back the camera is slim.
-Take overnight sleeper train from Xian to Beijing. The sleeper car was actually quite nice (either that or anything is better than the bus we had just taken). The hard sleeper (or did we take the soft sleeper?) consists of a small compartment with three bunks per wall, one on the left wall and one on the right. Not a lot of space, but since you're supposed to be sleeping, it wasn't a big deal.

5/29

-Arrive in Beijing in the morning. Find a cheap hotel in the Qian Men area. It has Western-style toilets and a/c, but we later discover the a/c didn't work that well and the shower had no hot water. By this point we only had a few days left in China so we decide to just deal with what we had. At least there was a roof over our heads.
-Met up with Marcus who is currently studying Chinese in Beijing. He took us to Houhai, where we ate delicious Yunnan food in a restaurant in a hutong as well as hung out on the rooftop of one of the bars nearby. Houhai seems to be a bar district, with lots of places to go out at night. We saw a number of foreigners and young people about in the evening. I really enjoyed Houhai and walking through the hutongs. It was a different side of China that I hadn't seen yet since most of the things we did were more outdoorsy nature activities. Thanks to Marcus for showing us around and treating us to dinner!

5/30

-Shopping day! We go to Sanlitun to a popular mall where many foreigners shop so the vendors all speak some English. It was very amusing to watch non-Chinese speakers bargain with the salespeople. I discovered the thrill of bargaining. I also discover that salespeople can tell right away if you're a foreigner and will try to get the most money out of you as possible. My proudest accomplishment is getting a lady to sell me a 150 yuan skirt for 50 yuan.
-We're treated to dinner by one of Hao's friends at a restaurant on the campus of Beijing University (Bei Da). We say good-bye to Hao's friends, who we've met during our time in China.

5/31

-I'm the first one to leave since I had a morning flight out of Beijing to Hong Kong and then Taiwan. Hail a taxi by myself for the first time. Flight from Beijing to Taipei was a bit of an adventure in itself. But that's another post.

Time for bed! Will hopefully go into more detail later. I just wanted to get the general events of the China trip down before I forget them.