7 Saved by Fei

The next day didn't start out much better. While the hotel workers were nice, they wanted to charge us ridiculous prices for tours, and didn't have a taxi driver option. We were feeling really frustrated as there are major tourist sites in the city and no way to see them. Just when we were ready to head to the train station to wait out the day in this terrible town, a man came over and tried to help us. He spoke broken English but was able to at least communicate (mostly everyone else needs an app or stares at us blankly). He turned out to be the most amazing stranger. He told us there was a park nearby and he would help us find the proper bus to get to the different sites. He ended up walking with us to the park and taking us around. The park is full of peonies (most had not yet bloomed), but it was a neat place to walk around.

 These teddy bears walked around, pulling these wagons. It was the craziest thing!

We learned that he is in the army, a squadron leader, lives in Luoyang but is from a small town near Beijing and is done the army this year. He was heading home that afternoon by train so said he had some time to walk with us. When we were done looking at the flowers, we walked back and he offered to take us to a famous temple, White Horse Temple. He went and grabbed his tiny bag, and we took our backpacks on the local bus to a small train station where we stored our them. We caught a taxi and Fei negotiated a set price for the temple, back to the small train station and then on to the train station we actually needed. We arrived at the temple and it was beautiful. It was neat to be there with Fei as he told us that this was the first Buddhist temple in China.

We finished exploring, jumped back in the cab and returned to pick up our bags. We got back in the taxi again and headed to the station our train would be leaving from. We left our bags again in the left luggage area and Fei took us to the taxi lineup and arranged a taxi to the Longmen Grottoes. He spent all day with us. He said he wanted to make sure we had a good time in China. He also said he wished he had a car so he could have driven us around and that he wished he didn't have a ticket for the train so he could take us to the grottoes. He was such a wonderful light in a bleak few days. I know I will always be grateful to him for the wonderful day he gave us when we were hating Luoyang.

We arrived at the grottoes, and by this point we were hot and sweaty, it was humid and there were a million people since it was Saturday.  We paid for a ticket on a little battery powered, open car trolley to take us to the entrance (thank goodness because I think it was 3km down the road). We started exploring the amazing caves carved into the side of the rock. Some of the carvings are 2000 years old!

We walked through quickly, trying to beat the crowds and tour groups. We were ready to be done so bought another ticket on the trolley which took us right to the taxi area. After some fierce negotiations, we got a cab with a grandma, mom, and son. We didn't care as long as the price was lower. The driver dropped us off, we retrieved our bags and got to the train station with over an hour to kill. One at a time, we went to get some food, we hadn't really eaten any meals today since there was so much crappy stuff happening. I went to the Chinese restaurant (not the kind you're thinking of), and ordered soup, some gyoza (which are pronounced with a soft g and a silent y in case you were wondering), and a pop. I paid and was pleasantly surprised to find that I got to pick a side, so I chose fresh strawberries. I waited while the woman cooked the dumplings. I figured the soup didn't take much work but was wondering why she only had a giant soup bowl out. I soon found out as she dumped about 25 dumplings into the bowl. I said no no that's not what I ordered and they were so great and made me soup and gave me the dumplings, which were delicious. I brought it back up to where Sarah was waiting so she could get some food herself. The soup was delicious and hit the spot.

We had an uneventful, short journey to XIan. A taxi took us to our hotel, in the old town. I couldn't wait to explore this place, it had such a great vibe. Sadly, we don't have much time here so tomorrow we plan to go to the Terra Cotta warriors. 

As bad as the experiences are that we've had the last two days, every time I wish we would have skipped Luoyang, or booked a different hotel, I remember Fei and how lucky we are to have met him. If we had skipped it or had stayed somewhere else, we never would have met him. And he was a good reminder of kindness when things get hard.