First meetings

The anonymous crowd of the railway station and warm privacy of our friends

We try to get a taxi that will take us to the hotel but none will take us since the journey is too short for them, so dad, who wants to get there as soon as possible, bribes a driver for double the price that is, 3 euros. We take the taxi and I observe this city that I thought at first would be a small country town, but which is in fact a very modern city filled with people. If you look up, you can see company headquarters like the large Chinese branch of HSBC and also a good deal of high-tech stores since Xian is one of the best places for the high-tech industry in China. We arrive at our hotel. It’s a big hotel. It’s quite different from our hotel in Beijing! In the really nice lobby, we find Lu Fan who is a city photographer, and the mayor of a small town of 5 million people. Yep! That’s what they consider a small town here. He and his son came to pick us up for a meal, but before that we went to our room to shower and put all the batteries for our cameras, video cameras, computers and cell phones in the charger! When we were ready, we went down for some lunch in a restaurant where the manager, a young, tall and skinny woman, was waiting. Dad, who sees a photo exhibit, asks who the photographer is, and the manager tells us that the photographer in question is waiting for us. We go to the other side of the room as indicated by the manager, and there we meet a man with a big belly and who speaks only Chinese. So, dad speaks with him throughLiu Jia. They speak together for a long time and I realize that in reality, my English isn’t all that bad. After, we eat traditional dishes from Xian like a soup so spicy that I didn’t manage to finish it. Dad, who needs some information on things to see and do, asks the two photographers if they have any recommendations. That must be the job of a journalist! The photographer who has an exhibit in the restaurant calls one of his students, who arrives 30 minutes later when we are about to leave the restaurant. Dad is happy and explains to him our journey while the mayor’s son gives me his number so that I can call him to go play basketball. Before leaving the restaurant, I take for the road two Chinese breads that are plain yet very good.