Good post, sir! I suppose Xi'an is attractive for foreign historian types, of which I'm definitely not one. There are also some good third-tier cities, like Luzhou of Sichuan and Baoji of Shaanxi - they're surrounded by good scenery and have a decent variety of Chinese restaurants, as well as decent infrastructure and clean hospitals. The problem is they are few and far between. Handan is certainly not one of them!