Bad Feet, Goose Pagodas and Waterworks

Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I was able to visit Asia's largest fountain today and witness a pretty spectacular (and free) music and water show...in freezing temperatures, granted, but it was still well worth it. The bad news is that I never got to Hua Shan, a Holy Mountain of China, because I seem to have somehow sprained my ankle. I honestly have no idea how it happened. Two days ago I realized I had a twinge in my foot and about an hour later I noticed that I was limping pretty badly. Since then I've been visiting lots of historic sites and walking almost constantly which, in hindsight, may not have been the best idea. Tomorrow I leave Xi'an for Beijing so I'll be spending most of the day in an airplane, which should be restful for my foot. At least the parts where I'm not rushing for a cab, hauling around my suitcase that has one broken wheel and carrying it up and down the stairs to and from my room, loading luggage onto the airport bus and trying to find my terminal will be restful.

But enough about my foot, let's talk about the fountain! Alot of the time "historic sites" in China get over-hyped and can leave a person disappointed, but this fountain is honest to goodness HUGE. I definitely believe it to be Asia's largest. Every night at 8:30 pm they have a 20 minute presentation of choreographed music, lights and water. Granted, we were told the program started at 8 pm so we stood in the 30 degree weather for almost an hour waiting, but I'm glad we stuck around. The fountain is located in the square to the front of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in southern Xi'an and the park area around the square is a great place to walk, hang out, exercise or just watch Chinese grandparents out walking with their grandchildren.

To top off a pretty good day, I had Subway for dinner. I would say that Subway cookies are delicious by American standards which pretty much means that for a person who has been in China for six months and not had any decent baked goods they are PIECES OF HEAVEN delivered down to us mere mortals by some benevolent force. I would have paid nearly any price to have them for my very own, but at 6 cookies for the equivalent of $2.20 I felt myself both lucky and thrifty, my favorite combination!