City 4 of the big China trip led us to Xian the Ancient Capital of China and famous for the Tang Dynasty.
The first visit was to an art gallery. I always thought that art was not something meant for me but the visit to Xian -pronounced Shi-ann- stoked a love afair with Chinese art and paintings in particular. Xian is famous for its artists, local people and farmers make provincial paintings.
This is a depiction of the inside of a Xian home, before the modern era.
This is the farmers painting style, you can spot it a mile away. Very curved edges, less ornate and not in the brush style I prefer.
This lady was pretty cool and spoke great english. She also gave us a lesson in painting in Chinese writing with the traditional brush technique.
The depiction of the zodiac animals here is so cute and cool. There were so many zodiac animal statues for sale in China and yet this particular design was only seen in the gallery in Xian. A shame because usually the Chinese rip anything off and copy it off, then sell it at a lower price.
This is the inside of a toilet in a Tang style restaurent. It had a 5 star rated toilet and the soap came in the clay pots that used to be traditionally used for tea.
This is the inside lobby of said restaurent which also had a banqueting hall and stage. More pics below.
We visited the Wild Goose pagoda a pretty awesome structure. It was damaged in an earthquake, but because of the design where one layer sits on top of the other, a later earthquake just popped it back into place. 
This is badass cat I found at the pagoda. He had a buddy who ran off, but this one stood to be stroked.
Ceremonial bell at the pagoda park.
This was the hotel, fairly boring but had good food and very, very comfortable beds.
Where are te photographs of the food and the beds then?
So basically what you're after is contemporary Asian art. You should be able to find originals of that sort of thing easily for a hundred to a few hundred dollars or so.
The hotel had a pianist in the lobby and the rooms were arranged around the central hall where he played.
Could you hear the piano from your room?
Yeah, and there was a sound system in the room which you could use to pipe music in.
That could have got very annoying very fast.
I had a delicious burger from room service, it was like an american burger with some soy sauce or oyster sauce in the patty. Added that extra kick and richness.
That cat looks like he's got everything under control. The true boss of the street.
Soy sauce is awesome with everything.
In Shanghai this one moped driver had his medium sized pooch with his back paws on the floor and his front ones on the steering sticks. The driver sat behind and this dog looked like he was loving it, like he felt he was driving.