Xi'an

The weather forecast was for rain all three days I was in Xi'an but just when I arrived, the rain stopped and the skies cleared, so my guide took me directly to the old walled city. The wall is intact with a twenty foot wide walkway on top of it. I jumped on a bike and rode the nine miles path.

Unlike Pingyao, a large modern city has grown up around the not-so-small walled city. 

Modern Xi'an has a population of over nine million. Just a small town in China.

After my ride, I went to a local restaurant for a dumpling banquet.  The specialty of Xi'an

is dumplings of every variety and in different shapes.

The next day I went to the site that has been bringing tourists to Xi'an for forty years: 

the terra cotta soldiers. In ancient times, when an emperor died, his servants were

buried alongside him - not a strong inducement to work for an emperor, especially

an older one.  But the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty decided to be buried with

symbolic, rather than real, soldiers. While still very much alive, he oversaw the

construction of thousands of lifesize soldiers, officers, cavalry, archers, chariots,

and horses.  Reportedly, more than 700,000 laborers worked on the project over

a period of more than thirty years.

The Chinese have dug out trenches with some of the over one thousand unique figures,

and enclosed them in huge pavilions.  They also established a museum were you can

look at a few of the figures up close and personal. Pictures do not do this one justice;

this is one place you really have to see for yourself.

After we visited the Xi'an City Museum, my guide told me we would be going to the

Provincial Museum which included much more.  I heard "provincial" as in small

and backward, but he meant the museum for the province (state) which of course

was more comprehensive than the city museum.  Both were excellent with an

overview of the history of the region from prehistoric man through the present.  

Then we visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. According to ancient stories of 

Buddhists, there were two branches, for one of which eating meat was 

not a taboo. One day, they couldn't find meat to buy. Upon seeing a group 

of big wild geese flying by, a monk said to himself: 'Today we have no meat. 

I hope the merciful Bodhisattva will give us some.' At that very moment, 

the leading wild goose broke its wings and fell to the ground. All the monks were 

startled and believed that Bodhisattva showed his spirit to order them to 

be more pious. They established a pagoda where the wild goose fell and 

stopped eating meat.  Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

At a break for lunch, I encountered these eco-friendly chopsticks.  Small sanitary

disposable wooden tips come in the little pink package.  You insert the tip

in the blue, ceramic washable body of the chopsticks.

Finally we visited the Great Mosque in the Moslem quarter of the city.  Xi'an was the

eastern (Chinese) terminus of the Silk Road which took many routes to the west,

ending in India, Damascus, Cairo, Turkey, Venice, and other several other places. 

Because of the Silk Road, Moslems came to Xi'an as early as the seventh century,

and there is still a large Moslem population. Well, large is relative. The guide told me

there were over 200,000 Moslems in Xi'an and I thought that was a lot.  But he said,

yes but in a city of nine million, it is nothing.

Walking down the streets of the Moslem quarter was like being in a cross between

the Kasbah and China.  Food vendors constantly shout out their servings, something

that does not happen in other neighborhoods, so there is a loud, vibrant feel to the

street.  But all the vendors look Chinese.

I understand that the Moslems do not eat pork, the primary meat in the Chinese diet,

but there is one thing I could not understand.  In both Xi'an and Pingyao the food stalls

sell squid and octopus on skewers. But we are more than 1,500 miles from the ocean.

This can't be a traditional food.  When I asked the guides, they both said that

transportation is good in modern China and you can get fresh seafood inland. Yes, but.

This can't be a traditional food here.

Traditionally, every city in China had a bell tower and a drum tower.  The Chinese day

had twelve hours, each the equivalent of two hours. During the day, the bell would

be rung to mark each hour and at night, they would sound the drum.  I am staying at

the Bell Tower Hotel and have this lovely view of the bell tower which is lit up at night.