Xi'an

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So I'm finally writing these about 6 months too late, but I think I can remember most the important stuff, ha. This entry is for June 19th, 20th and 21st I believe...

City stuff

In an earlier entry I mentioned walking through a very interesting park, well above is the video of this "everyday" park with much more activity at 8am than any park I've been to back in the states! Terracotta army was earlier along with a trip to Huashan. After staying up 36 hours and hiking all paths Huashan, I took a much deserved nap. Everyone else was of course still at Huashan when I woke up.

I headed to the Big (Wild) Goose Pagoda Square - 大雁塔 Dà Yàntǎ - to get a better view of the city. The Pagoda - located at Ci'en Temple and built by Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi in 652AD is the emblem of the city. The square itself was basically as it sounds a big square of concrete with mostly tourist type buildings lining the sides with festival costumes and overpriced small restaurants. Although, as I found out later that night, it's host to an outstanding water fountain show. I didn't enter any of the shops but passed by several comedic and cultural statues trying to find the entrance to the area. Chinese youth and I think one Korean kid were having fun climbing on and posing for pictures with the statues.

Inside the Pagoda area was your typical bell tower and drum tower - both only hosting one big version of each. The drum, if I remember right, was one of the oldest outside of only the Shanghai museum. I traveled up the iconic pagoda, passing by a few beautiful historic scriptures and artwork/tributes, and then was disappointed to find the "city view" (about 9 stories up) blocked by bars and a tiny opening...so I fit my hands through either side and let my camera view it for me. I hurried down to scope around the rest of the temple and found a few pleasant gardens with some very lively and cute birds - albeit caged. The only uncaged ones were a few loose hens, ha. I wanted to quickly head to the Muslim Quarter before it got dark for coordination purposes, however as I was leaving the square the fountain show unexpectedly began.

I sat through three different shows to Beethoven music, tradition chinese, and a pop song. The locals thoroughly enjoyed taking a break from the heat joyfully running through the fountain. I wanted to join them, but I would not have had time to change and head all the way to the hotel AND visit both the Xi'an Drum tower and Muslim Quarter - Huimin Jie. Though I still visited a "Folk Theme Park" adjacent to the square before leaving. Basically just a bunch of larger comedic statues with certain spots for people to pose in for pictures or kids just to run around between.

I hitched a bus up to the drum tower and found the Muslim Snack Street directly behind it. I tried a medley of oddly shaped fried items on skewers (calamari, some very wheaty noodles), a very colorful and tiny rice dish (sweet, but stiff like a patty), a disgusting black gooey thing (perhaps a fried sugar cake), and alot of dumplings! At the dumpling restaurant I had a stare-off with the owners son (3-4 yrs), he was cute but just kept glaring, haha!! I washed it all down with deliciously sweet plum tea - cheap too. I ventured out to see the drum tower brilliantly lit up at night and observed a very interesting activity for the locals - flying kites with the lighted, smoggy night air reflecting in the background. Makes sense, it's much too hot during the day to fool around with kites! Though, their kites were the ones with multiple triangles along a string - a bit trickier to control. It was 9pm at night and the public square next to the drum tower was teeming with locals walking their dogs in the few grass patches, skaters, and couples relaxing in the drum towers twilight.

After another long day I finally made my way back to the hotel to greet my friends only to find them already passed out. I trekked back to square between the drum and bell tower and people-watched for a good hour and while looking for a bus back heard a guitarist! It was a quite skilled musician playing his own songs but finishing his set with an extremely popular song - judging by the crowds reactions. Girls were all around the circle, though I made sure to stay on the outside - for one, due to my height, and two, to not distract the guitarist or disturb the crowd since I was already getting enough "is that a foreigner" glances where I was, haha.

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The next day I woke up a bit late, but managed to convince Parker and Ethan to head to the Xi'an City Wall with me before they visited Huimin Jie and the First Mosque ever built in China...right before our train. We found a few quick eats across from the park and then hopped a bus to the Southern City Wall Gate. There we rented our bikes from the most attractive girl I saw throughout the entire Xi'an trip. I was so taken aback, I didn't even remember to take a picture - plus we had friggin bicycles on a city wall!!!! We rode for about an hour or two, stopping for a few pictures and to perfect our zig-zag patterns and tricks. After getting our 200 Kuai ! deposit back we ran to the snack street where I took part again in stuffing my face - this time with Biang Biang Mian and Yang Rou Pao Muo - both signature dishes of Xi'an. The is a noodle dish with extremely thick and long noodles while the second consists of a piece of bread and a kettle of lamb soup with clear/see-through noodles. It is customary to shred the bread into smallest possible pieces! The character for "biang" isn't yet possible to type into a computer, but we just looked for a complex character with about 57 strokes repeated twice before "面".

I caught up to the others at the Grand Mosque (清真寺 Qīngzhēnsì - the first one ever built in China. The original wooden gate had surprising still preserved. Inside were active practitioners of the religion - we caught a glimpse of the group during their prayer session. Several of the statues and structures appeared as important relics from the past with minimal new corny decorum!

Between the Grand Mosque and the Snack Street is a fantastic little alley filled with souvenir vendors - it's where I bought my three sets of chopsticks.

The train back was not so hectic - until we arrived at Shanghai railway station at 7:30am - only 30 minutes before Joey's, Ethan's, Ted's, and my first class! Needless to say, we made it - still with all our luggage - quite the bamfs, ha

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Photos

Big Goose Pagoda in the Background
Took me a good 10 minutes to decide that the entrance must be on the completely opposite side!

The 9 Buddha forms
Inside the main temple building

A pretty temple hall
I slipped and fell on my ass on the marble-like slant by the stairs while taking this picture - quite embarrassed, ha.

Big Goose Pagoda
And a beautiful blue sky!!!

Pretty flowers
Placed in front of a buddhist statue

Water Fountain Show
The fountains covered so much ground I couldn't even get it all in one shot, ha.

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