Dumplings and Dances

After a visit to one of the most incredible sights in the world, The Terracotta Warriors, our guide chats to us about the supper we're to have. 
Yup, it's Chinese food. By now, some of us are weary of it, but Tom tells us this is different. It's a Xi'an hamburger.
Now, we're not going to get excited. We're too weary. Good thing. It's pulled pork on a hard roll the size of a small apple. Someone behind us wisely suggests only small portions. But it came with unlimited drinks, so there's always a silver lining.
But, if you will allow me to back up a bit, say, one day, I want to tell you about the dance last night. I switched the order of things for this blog to tell you about the warriors, but what happened to us last night is worth telling.
We were driving into a dark, dodgy area of Xi'an, and I wasn't the only one who was glancing around nervously. 

But it was all in vain.
The Dumpling Festival is at a theatre-styled restaurant where we immediately receive hot rice wine as a beautifully dressed woman plays one of those Chinese lyres I mentioned in an earlier post. It's a nice quiet introduction to what we are to watch.

 
We're then served mixed dumplings, and only one small drink. The rice wine was pretty good, all things considered, and the dumplings were in various cute shapes, depending on their filling. My photos were blurry because they dimmed the lights. 
They all tasted good, but our wine and one small cold drink had long since vanished by the time they brought out the spicy dumplings. One lady at our table had been told to wait for the later dumplings as they were better tastings, but by now, we needed to buy a drink. 

Which became an exercise in patience at this fully-packed theatre that saw the servers darting around like flies. I wondered if that was their ploy, to give us a hot drink, a small drink, then spicy food after that in order to force us to purchase the other drinks. 
But when the dance show started, all was forgotten. The performance was stunningly beautiful. 

I can't adequately describe it. Women dancing with long sleeves flipping them around as they represent birds like swans and such. It sounds feminine and it is, but everyone in the audience enjoyed it. 

 

 

The music delightful, the dancers incredible, and with an English narrator, we could follow the folk story being told. I videotaped two small segments and wish I could post it here, but I can't, so I put it up here. 

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Feel free to drop by and comment. 
Overall, though we were tired, I have to say it was a fabulous performance. 

In tomorrow's post, I'll take you on the Bullet Train!