My flight from Hong Kong to Xi’an was delayed due to a storm in Hong Kong, but the real problem, I discovered, was to enter China with my (not Chinese) passport. The last few times I have traveled to China, I entered from Beijing or Shanghai, where most of foreigners enter and officials are accustomed to foreign passports.

There are eight ‘strange’ peculiarities in Shaanxi Province, called 陕西八大怪:

I arrived in Hong Kong after a 12-hour flight from Frankfurt at around 6am local time, check-in at the hostel was not until 2pm, so some other travelers and me took a first walk through the city to get most of our stay. It was hot and humid as expected, but our conversations kept my mind busy and I didn’t feel too exhausted (that would come afterwards). We managed to get the amazing Octopus card, the first chipcard used for transportation systems (oh I love this thing), and managed to find the fish market quiet easily. Other markets we wanted to see were not as easy to find and we’re still not sure if we ever found it or not.