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Route in China (CHINA - Xi'an)

Bec
2004-09-19 16:57:28

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exams until then. Here we are guzzling beer in "Mom's Cafe" across the street from Renmin Flats on Fenghe Lu.

A year before, I could not sleep one night so at 3 o'clock AM, I started to play with Qualcomm's Internet Phone 4 which I had just acquired. That is how I had my first contact with Hua Feng. The voice channel was bad so we used the chat mode for a while. Latter we kept in touch by e-mail looking forward to our first meeting which you see here. It was this experience which gave me the idea of finding internet contacts before leaving for an extended trip. Now I do it all the time and I must say that it makes a world of difference...

Their exams over, Hua Feng and Liu Chunming, who were both doing post grad work on signals processing theory at the Northwestern Polytechnic University, took two days off to show me around. They brought me here to visit the Shaanxi History Museum which I found fascinating but where I could not take pictures.

We visited a number of places of which the famous Big Goose Pagoda at the end of Yanta Lu south of the city. The original pagoda was built in the 7th century by Tang Emperor Gao Zhong to house Buddhist scriptures brought back from India by the backpacking monk Xuan Zang who translated them into Chinese. The original mud brick pagoda collapsed several times until replaced by this stone version in the Ming Dynasty.

Hua Feng and Liu Chunming were justly proud to show me the North Western Polytechnic University of which this Library is a recent addition financed by gifts from offshore Chinese. It was a most interesting and heart warming visit for me. I was welcomed like an old friend as toured their labs where I met some of their colleagues and Hua Feng's father who is a scientist and professor with the university.

That evening, Hua Feng's father, Dr. Huang Yong Kang prepared dinner for us. Dr Huang did not speak English but that did not cool his hospitality in any way. I must say that he was an excellent cook. The six course banquet he prepared himself was memorable. In the usual order, Xie Ning, Hua Feng's sister in law Xie Ning, Hua Feng, me, Hua Feng's father, Hua Feng's wife Qin Xiao Qun, and Hua Feng's friend Liu Chunming (a neighbour came in to take the picture).

The Xingqing Park is said to be the site of gardens surrounding the Palace of Tang Dynasty Emperors but this palace is certainly not that old. Whatever its age, the park was a beautiful place to stroll in with good friends as you can see from these photos.

I spent a wonderful afternoon enjoying Xingqing Park with my friends Nancy, Hua Feng, his wife and Liu Chunming. Then, we went to a restaurant on East street for dinner and they all accompanied me to the station where I got on the night train to Lanzhou. I was amazed how nice they had been to me!

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