Visiting Xi'an

I finally got around to go through my photos from my trip to Xi'an. I travelled to Xi'an together with three of my good friends: Kim, Rain and Blair. We spent 2 whole days there, one day for the city itself, and one day to see the terra-cotta soldiers.

Xi'an is the capital of Shaanxi province almost in the middle of all of China. It is one of Chinas oldest cities, and it has been the capital of the 'Middel Kingdom' for many more years than both Beijing and Nanjing put together. It is in Xi'an that the Silk road started (or ended, depending how you look upon it), but today it is most known for the unearthed army of terra-cotta soldiers that were found in the 70-ties. Because of the silk road, islam was first introduced to the Chinese people in Xi'an, and there still is a big population of muslims in the city today. The chinese muslims however are very 'chinese'. I don't know how to explain it otherwise. The women cover their hair and you cannot get a beer or pork dishes in a muslim restaurant. But aside from that you don't see or feel the islam in the city. Even their mosque is build like a beautiful old traditional chinese temple. You do however find great lamb dishes with delicious spices, and I could have stayed many more days there just for the food!!

I have a lot of photos, so lets get to them. I only had my iPhone with me, so the quality of the photos are not the best, but they should give you a taste of Xi'an!

The bell tower of Xian. Unfortunately it looks a little bit lost today as they have build one of the city's biggest roundabout around it.

Street in the evening.

I found an art store.

The drum tower of Xian. Around the whole first floor of the tower they have bigger than man-sized drums that monks still use today on special occasions.

The night market. Absolutely packed with people. Buzzing. And totally amazing with all its smells of food and spices.

The night market has become a tourist attraction, so of course you also find a lot of stores selling stuff.

And food!! Lamb skewers. One word: Delicious!!! We walked around and almost ate our way through the night market. We tasted a little bit of this here, and a little bit of that there… Amazing!

After a lot of walking we found this special parlor before heading home to the hotel and the bed: a fish-spa for your feet. My right foot was obviously better tasting than my left...

Next morning was our full day of seeing Xian. We started with walking out to find some thing to eat for breakfast, and then we continued walking the whole day.

Steamed dumplings.

Dried fruits and nuts. Doesn't it look beautiful?

Rain looking at the goods.

Kim at the mosque.

The mosque was set in a beautiful garden with many small houses and gates. The actual praying hall was the last house in the garden, just a small open room with carpets on the floor. The only sign of it being a mosque and not a temple was the absent of any buddha figures or ancestor shrines. And on some of the houses you could see some arabic writings next to the chinese characters.

It was very peaceful, and beautiful in spring greens.

We also found an indoor market that was much less crowded than the outside one.

Fried crab on a stick.

The night market during the day. We ate lunch at a muslim restaurant that served us a Xian specialty: lamb with soaked bread in a soup.

Basket shop.

After lunch we headed straight for the south gate of Xi'an and up on the city wall. The old city of Xi'an is surrounded by a brick wall that is almost 14 km long, 12 m high and I would say as broad as well. It makes an excellent walkway for sightseeing around the city. Inside you have the old city, outside you have the modern city.

Pingpong on the outside.

Local market on the inside. Tomatoes to the left and pineapple to the right.

It was not high season when we were there, so it was peaceful and not too many tourists on the wall.

We had luck with the weather, sunny but not too hot.

We walked on the wall for at least 2 hours, and in that time we only covered a quarter of it. At the east gate we went down in search for some food and a chair. Our feet were aching at this point. Before going to bed we sought out a foot massage parlor and treated ourselves to a foot massage.

Chinglish. What happens when you trust google translator...

The next day we had the terra-cotta soldiers on our schedule. First we visited a factory that makes soldiers in the same way that the original soldiers were made.

For souvenirs they make small models of the big soldiers.

Burnt and ready to be sold as memory for us tourists.

They also made traditional chinese clay figurines and furniture, and they sold paintings and what nots.

This is a painting done with thread, and I thought it quite inspirational for me.

After the factory it was time for the real deal. This is the foot soldiers from pit 1, the biggest part of the army. Next to this was pit 2 with the cavalry and archers, and after that pit 3 with a small group of the generals in their chariots. Altogether they estimate that there are over 8,000 soldiers in this terra cotta army with 130 chariots and over 500 horses. It was discovered in 1974 by a farmer who was digging a well.

It was the emperor Qin Shi Huang who build this army to protect him in his afterlife. He died 210-09 BCE.  His tomb lies behind the army at the foothill of a mountain. Unfortunately the army did not last long, just a short time after the emperor died, his enemies found his 'army' and destroyed most of it. (The emperor's tomb itself though is thought to be undisturbed, and today it is forbidden to excavate it.) Today they are piecing together the soldiers carefully by hand one at a time. The soldiers were fully painted in livid colors before buried, but the paint flakes of in a matters of minutes after they come in contact with the air, so they are not unearthing more of the soldiers before they find a way of conserving the paint.

Our trip was only for a long weekend, but it felt like we were there for much longer. It would have been fun to have had a step counting device on during our walks in and around the city. At least our feet could give testimony of how much we moved about. It was a very eventful and colourful couples of days, and we had so much fun together! It felt like visiting the 'real' China, and I can highly recommend Xi'an as a destination to visit instead of Beijing or Shanghai.