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Wishes
Big Wild Goose Pagoda 6am is riddiculously early to arrive in any city, especially a new one and when you had no idea where you are going. So when I came out of the train station and saw a guy waving a placard with the logo of the hostel I booked on it, I was surprizingly relieved. I know it's more adventurous to find your way with the buses and you get a sense of achievement when you make it (Blah blah blah), but I was tried and stressed out after Beijing so I was more than happy to accept my free pickup gratefully! I stayed at Backpax hostel which is an interesting mix of western (the guy that owns it, the bar staff and chef are all Yanks), english speaking chinese staff and ex 'happy ending' Moroccan Spa decor. I met Helen within about 20 mins of being in the hostel and aggreed to go on a trip that was organised by the hostel to the 8 Immortals Temple for a bit of Tai Chi. Very random and quite expensive but I figured, 'why the hell not?!', despite not sleeping on the train.
"Wax on, Wax off"
'Papa' (love it when Chinese
Bridge To Immortality
Eight Immortals Temple, Xi'an people give themselves random western names) gave us a tour around the temple and was a fountain of information, we walked around the temple's buildings for about an hour and were told all about the different iconic figures of the Taoist religion. According to the Taoist faith the bridge to immortality lies in this temple in Xi'an so if anyone fancies it they can run over, but beware there is a little red ribbon barring your access. Apparently the bridge is closed at the moment, so we were unable to test it's efficiency; shame, think a dab of immortality would've helped me on this trip no end! Helen and Alex also got their fortunes told by a monk with some sticks before the fun really started. (at 20yuan a pop I thought I would leave my fortune to float in the ether!)
I think I like Tai Chi! a) the monk was really yummy b) you feel like you might be toning something without it being a sweaty workout c) you are actually meant to spaceout! The monk couldn't speak any english so Papa translated and if we were in the wrong position the monk would just move us
into the right one (Apparently Taoist monks are allowed to touch women. Hmmmm!) It took a while for us to get the jist of it and remember the movements because they become very complicated quite quickly and have to be just so. I found that the easiest way was to just zone out (something that comes naturally for me!) and focus on your body and then the movements just came a little quicker. To be honest it was fairly easy to do it this way because the place where we were actually doing it in was perfect, a courtyard surrounded by temples, with the dappled light falling through the trees, providing shade and a harmonious atmosphere in which to get pretentious and focus on our Chi!
TANGtastic!!!
In the arvo I missed out on what is apperently one of the highlights of Xi'an. I was too tried and we had planned to do a self guided tour to the Terracotta Army (the hostels tour cost 195 yuan, what a rip!) the next day, so a bike ride seemed lieke far too much of an effort. BUt renting a bike and riding around the city walls is meant to
be one of the nicest things to do. We rainchecked The Army however and I had a lazy day until the evening when we want to the 'spectacular' TAng PAradise!
I you decide to go to this mountain of Chinese cheese then I suggest you arrive in the afternoon and not just in time for the water show at 8 as we did! During the day there are people walking around in full Tang Dynasty costumes and you can walk around the park and into the pavillions. We however paid 60yuan just to watch the watershow and walk around the park while everyone was packing up! The watershow is 'the biggest in the world', not sure about that one, but it was incredibly entertaining. Amimation was projected on to the water fountains that moved with the story and there were many coloured lights to Oooooh and Aaaaaah over! We couldn't understand a word but definitely 'interesting!'
Lets face it - the reason we all came!
The Terracotta Warriors is a fasinating feat of human engineering - and psycotic obsession - and the main reason why most people come to Xi'an. It's a little outside the city and
took us a couple of buses to get to but really worth doing it on your own, I think if I had been on a tour I would've rammed my head into a brick wall long before I even got to the warriors pits, not being a big historian myself! I was very proud of myself when I arrived, I think a guy tried to con me but I side stepped that one! I was jammily getiing a student ticket (45yuan instead of 90!) and a guy said he would help me buy the ticket, asking to see my student card and questioning its validity. The moment he said give me the money, I shoved him out the way and gave my money to the teller, she didn't even look at my card and I didn't need a word of Chinese. Not sure what his scam was but pretty sure I would've been the worse for wear.
When you enter Pit 1 there is a definite sense of awe, looking at something that you have seen so many times in pictures and thinking about how it came about is a little overwhelming. Don't expect too much though, Pit 1
is the largest pit and has the greatest number of fully recovered warriors, but pits 2 and 3 don't really have a whole lot too them. The archiologists are still of course uncovering more, but are apparently too scared to uncover the site of the Emperor's tomb! I mainly enjoyed taking photos and trying to get a decent shot, I was very lucky with my timing again and we got there when there was realitively few huge tour groups going round - I can imagine at sometimes, there being a Chinese style WWF bout for places at the rail (nothing compared to the rush to get on a train or tube though, Jesus! these people can hold their own!)
I had to leave for Kunming that evening because of (Damn) visa restrictions, I couldn't afford the plane so 36 hour train journey on my own, it was! A short and sweet stop over in Xi'an, but to be honest I was soooooo happy to be going back down south again. I missed being able to see the sky and talk to Chinese people that weren't complete grumps! (having said that the chinese that worked in the hostels I stayed
Incense
Eight Immortals Temple t have all been absolute sweeties!)
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