china: day seven

Today we crashed a wedding. We started at the bride's father's house for fireworks, then went to a hotel party room. I had thought that were were only invited to the reception, but I was wrong--the actual wedding vows happened while the guests were being served their lunch. It was quite a spectacle. The couple changed outfits twice and visited each individual table to be toasted. The ceremony itself was not long at all--maybe two hours, and then the guests dispersed. We gave the couple thirty-four 100 yuan bills and some sweet Nebraska gear. Fun was had by all.

We spent the afternoon in the park with the father of the bride. He had invited us to dinner, and we were simply passing time until then.

Now, Chinese vendors and ride operators can get away with all sorts of things that wouldn't fly in the litigious States. Several members of the group were put into giant airtight rubber balls by a ride operator and pushed out onto the lake. They had, well, a ball--and gathered a crowd of two hundred Chinese--until they ran out of air and weakly pushed themselves back to shore.

Apparently it's meant only for children, hence the crowd. Later, we experienced--at least, I think "experienced" is the right word--improvised music with screechy, piercing vocals. I had trouble getting into it, but art is art.

Dinner was a soup as strongly rooted in Xi'an as Peking Duck is in Beijing. Each diner is given a disk of dense, baked (as opposed to steamed) bread to break into pieces the size of rice grains. A soup with meat and rice noodles is then poured in, saturating the tiny bread pieces. Cilantro and chili paste are offered to season the soup to taste, and sweet garlic to cleanse the palate. It was the most delicious meal I've had here so far.

After the meal, I had virtually no energy left. Upon getting back to the dorm at 8:00 PM, I set my alarm for a one-hour nap. I woke to the sun in the morning with my alarm's battery dead. Guess I needed the extra few hours.