The next morning we got up to a slow start. Mike and Andy were busy with other plans, so Omar and I set out on our own. We grabbed some food (fries, milkshake and ice cream for me) after the usual hunt for stuff we could eat. Then we went down to the metro and head over to Tianmen Square. As we walked through, a lady came up to us and asked us if we'd like to see an art gallery. We said sure, and walked to the gallery, which was one of the stores inside the path to the Forbidden City. She was very nice, and explained some of the cultural context of the paintings. She said she was a volunteer. We looked at the gallery, appreciating the information she told us about the pieces. Finally we had walked through the gallery and she asked us which piece we wanted. I thanked her and told her I could not really carry any of these pieces with me.
At that point she transformed. She was not happy. Omar and I spotted a South Asian couple (first I had seen in China) so as she had her little internal meltdown, I introduced myself to them and we traded notes on Indian grocery stores and restaurant info. In the middle of this, psycho art lady starts staring me down and pointing at the door. Omar and I glanced at her and I was annoyed so I told her to wait. I took my time talking to the South Asian man before I walked out.
Even the sales people at the stalls in the middle section were extremely pushy and annoying in selling their over priced garbage. Thankfully, once we entered the Forbidden City, there was none of that. We purchased our tickets and walked through many large open areas, taking in various museum exhibits along the way before reaching the living quarters in the back. By then it was time to close, so we started making our way back. It was cool to check out, but much of the architecture is more of the same. The large open spaces must have been very impressive when filled with armies long ago. As we walked past the gallery, some other guy asked if we wanted to see the art gallery and I let him know we had already been tthrown out.
Afterwards, we walked around some of the streets around that area, before walking around the Performing Arts Center and then taking the metro back to the hostel. We met up with Andy and the hostel and a fellow traveller who was visiting from Zimbabwe. Mike returned, but was too tired to go out with us, so the rest of us walked down the street towards a music show Andy and learned about along the way. The street we walked down was an interesting mix of young hip clothes and toys like you'd find at Giant Robot etc with interesting and pricey cafes as well as small general stores, and little hole in the wall eateries with old and young people hanging out. It was a really interesting place. We walked past all of that and turned down narrow lane past a large traditional style building. It was dark so all you could make out was a huge looming silhouette. The lane opened into a small park, with buildings that looked like temples on either side. People were hanging out in the park. We walked into a cafe where a band was setting up for a performance that night. It felt like a really nice, intimate music venue in Los Angeles. We grabbed a table toward the front and waited for the performance to begin. It was a lot of fun.
The musicians were mostly from in and around Xian as was the style of music. They played from 10pm to 12am and I managed some sketches of each of them which I gave to them later in the night. During the break Omar and Andy got to talking to the percussionist who was visiting from western China. We didn't have a common language, but another girl from Xian helped translate. The percussionist and the a group of girls in the audience who knew him were all Muslims from the areas we are traveling to next. We went back in, enjoyed the rest of the show, then hung out. Andy talked to the girls in the audience and got some info on the places are traveling to next. One was studying to become a tour guide so she may help us once we get to Xian. We may meet up with the percussionist in his town as well. Omar and the percussionist jammed together, trading rhythms from their respective countries. They could not speak to each other through words very well, but that didn't seem to matter when it came to music. It was a lot of fun to see them interact that way, and they both left having really pushed themselves playing. We all walked out around closing time, and head back to the hostel to bed.
