We spent a few days visiting the sites of Xi'An (including the famous terracotta warriors) and gaining an insight into the amazing Chinese dating scene. We went to a fantastic rooftop bar overlooking the walls of the city which are lit up at night. This was another escape from the tour group with one other tour member and two locals.
But to get to the rooftop oasis we had to walk through a crowded bar area. The air was so thick with cigarette smoke you couldn't see the other end of the room (or that might have been the 20 RMB ($3) per big bottle beers with dinner) and thanks to China's one child policy combined with the preference for boys meant there was a 4 to 1 ratio of men to women in the bar.
I believe now it isn't possible to predetermine the sex of your child in China so in future generations the gender imbalance will not be so great.
But the contest for women was strong. Each girl was the centre of a small group's attention and there was a fair bit of man handling going on. Combined with the duf duf music and cigarette smoke it emphasised hte oasis of the rooftop bar when we finally burst out of the meat market.
The next day we returned to Xi'An airport for check-in and one of the longest security queues I've ever seen before boarding B-2317 our A300-600R for the flight to Beijing on China Eastern Airlines.
The plane looked like it had been around the block once or twice and I subsequently found out its first flight was in 1994.
At the gate, people started lining up to board the aircraft when a frail little old Canadian lady with a walking stick started pushing her way forward in the queue. She was out pushing the Chinese! (I guess when in Rome and all that stuff.) Once on board the two aisle jet she was in the wrong aisle and had to push everybody back until she reached a bulk head so she could cross back over to the right aisle. Ah the joys of travel!
2-4-2 seating configuration with less legroom than the previous leg.
After boarding we sat at the gate for 45 mins waiting for air traffic control approval ro push back. There was no reading material provided and people started moving around the cabin. (This continued after push back finally commenced without any word from the FAs.)
A hot meal was served following by soft drinks.
When asked for beer, one FA said there wasn't any, but when another was asked shortly after cans of beer were produced. Although not cold they were a hit with our Australian tour group and the poor FA was kept busy ferrying beers from the galley to the thirsty group.
There were no flight deck announcements at all on either of the internal flights. Baggage arrived promptly and then we got to experience Beijing traffic!