Serious Travel Article 24: Xi'an Part 3. Return to Xi'an International Studies University and the Best Cake in Central China

On the next day Coco brought me to her old university, Xi'an International Studies University. It was a typical Chinese University, filled with old teaching blocks and seven story student dorms, six to a room with no running water, and no elevator to get up to the top floor. Inside the campus were tall leafy trees and abstract statues which meant nothing to me. 

The Main Gate of Xi'an International Studies University

The side streets around the university were buzzing with activity. Bars, cheap shops and restaurants lined the streets. We stopped in a little place called The Village Café, turn left as you leave the main gate of Xi'an International Studies University and walk down the side road, you'll find it on the right hand side. It was special as it was run by a bunch of foreigners, Coco used to meet her old friend Bonnie Stanford there when she taught in Xi'an, and it served all the favourites from back home. Including apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, carrot cake, chocolate cake and more. Being in China for extended periods makes you miss such things, we bought one of every cake they sold. Feeling food drunk, we continued to Xi'an International Studies University's new campus, out of town. 

Delicious Cake

It was a large modern campus, empty but still impressive. It was green and had fruit trees throughout. Close to Coco's old dorm building were plum and pomegranate trees. Both were falling off the trees and giving the ants below a grand feast. We decided to deprive the ants and take some fruit for ourselves. No sooner than we begun, a fat, middle aged woman began chasing us, screaming “that's not your fruit, go away”.

“We'll just let it all drop on the floor then if that's what you want,” Coco shouted back as we fled.

“It's my fruit, I can do whatever I want with it”.

It wasn't her fruit, it belonged to the university, but during the summer holiday, this pretender seemed to claim it as her territory. Not wanting to fight we scrambled with the handful of fruit we collected before the hippo charged. 

The new campus of Xi'an International Studies University filled with mammoth buildings and lines of fruit trees.

We explored the outer reaches of the campus, most of it abandoned and covered in graffiti, a growing problem in urban China.

For dinner I fell in love with another dish. Ma Shi are little noodles shaped like tiny fish, no more than 2cm long and 1 cm wide. Not what once expects when one orders noodles. They can be fried or boiled with chilli, eggs, vegetables, tomatoes or meat, or any combination of the above. I would soon be leaving Xi'an and you can't get Ma Shi anywhere else. I bravely decided to have two dinners that evening. It wasn't easy after all that cake, but brave decisions are often difficult.

For Part 1: Click Here

For Part 2: Click Here

For Part 4: Click Here