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Published: July 12th 2009
In the morning, Matt and I had time for a bike ride on the city wall. The city wall in Xian is the oldest intact city wall in China and was built in 600 A.D. It is 8.4 miles in perimeter and Matt and I managed to bike the entire distance. Of course after the cobblestone ride and the lightly padded bike seats our butts were pretty bruised!
We checked out of the hotel and took the bus to lunch before going to the China History Museum. The museum was a great way to gain an understanding of some the great history of China however we were so tired that it was hard to focus. The exhibits started with 1million BCE and covered all the dynasties of ancient China up to the Ming Dynasty which lasted from 1368 to 1644. After each exhibit we kept wondering how many more dynasties and years of history were remaining. It makes you appreciate their long standing traditions and culture which have evolved over thousands of years compared to our short 200 + year history.
One of the highlights was meeting Tim Hayden, guidance DC at Hereford, who returned to Xian from his
faculty retreat at a location about 16 hours from Xian. He came to the museum and had time to join us for dinner, along with his host teacher, Lilly. We had time to compare stories and hear about Tim’s experience during his 7 week stay in China while supervising the 15 American students on exchange.
Following dinner we made our way to the airport to check in for our flight back to Beijing. We boarded the plane for an 8:30 pm flight however we were delayed about 30 minutes. We were on a huge plane, but somehow that didn’t help to make a smooth flight with turbulence lasting almost the entire 90 minutes. We arrived back to our hotel at almost midnight, tired, sweaty and hot!
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