Xi'an--May 2016

Here's the thing.  I posted these pictures on my blog nearly a year ago as witnessed by the date.  Why text eluded me for all this time is anybody's guess.  I feel like this blog and I are at counter purposes.  It wants to soar and have a life.  I want to stomp on it and hear its whimper.  No, not really.  I love my blog!  I want to marry my blog and have its tiny little post it notes!!!!  I have nearly 9,000 pictures of  China.  You do the math.  If I want to do credit to each and every picture, I am going to have to forego sleep and eating for the next 17 months.

So I draggle on and on.

Back up to this ice cream.  There's a story here.  I just need to remember it!  I remember the cones cost $8!!!!  I remember they were uber delicious!  I remember we got them out of a portable van, and I recall that it was a family business, and the young daughter was Yale-educated!!!!  At $8 a whack I am sure they're on a warm beach somewhere by now.

We don't see these ear cleaners in the Jing, but they abounded in Sichuan.  Xi'an is kind of in that general direction.  I have never felt my ears needed this degree of cleaning.  That giant tweezer is a sort of "tuning device"-ish.

A straw man

Chinese paper cutting.  This woman is a master and a very patient teacher.  I have some in my scriptures to prove that I could do it.

Bread to the nth degree!

A very pleasant and jolly noodle craftsman!!

Noodle drying!

These are DEEEEElicious!  I eat them in our campus cantine with vinegar and beans.  mmmmmm...

Flat noodles--various on an oft-repeated Chinese theme.

Grinding of the peppers

Barrels of fermenting vinegar

And the goat end of a goat cart!!  I'll get back to you on this village's name.  Thanks to the Xi'an branch for letting me tag along on their branch outing!