Walls, Warriors and 8 Treasure Rice Puddings

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Walls, Warriors and 8 Treasure Rice Puddings

We have arrived in Xi'an after an hour flight from Chengdu where we saw our first bit of blue sky as we left. Is is hot and sunny as we walk from the airport bus to our youth hostel and already we are liking this place. It is a walled city and we are staying just inside the South Gate which proves to be a fantastic location from which to explore the city. There are two beautiful towers, a drum tower and a bell tower which were orignially built in the 1300's and traditionally the bell was rung at dawn and the drum beat at dusk. We ventured inside both towers with Alice getting a quick beat of a drum in - fancy no drumming in the drum tower?

Near the Drum tower is the Muslim Quarter which we wandered around on several occasions finding it a great place with a fantastic atmosphere, lots of people, stalls and interesting food. The kids endured our first venture around - perhaps the walk down the lane selling huge chunks of offal put them off - but after discovering the 8 treasure rice puddings they were begging to go back. Now I think an 8 treasure rice pudding would be sweet sticky rice that is steamed in a bamboo steamer and then pressed into a pattie onto two skewers with a splash of a choice of 8 flavours of syrup - whatever the kids loved them! It was in the Muslim Quarter that we also became the proud owners of a Chairman Mao watch - his arm waves back and forward as the seconds tick by and it was a bargain for a 'genuine automaticico veeery good quality watch' - well it's automatic after you wind it up and Ged and Jess are very happy taking it in turns to wear.

The wall around Xian is a 14km rectangle of restored walls, originally built in 1370 during the Ming dynasty. It is possible to walk, cycle or ride a golf cart around the perimeter. We had all planned to ride around but Alice wasn't allowed as she was too small and it would be unsafe! so the boys took off on their tandem bike and us girls took a pedicab for an hour and then watched a superb drum performance under the South Gate.

The Army of Terracotta Warriors were the drawcard for us to Xian and has been something Ged has wanted to see for a long time. The Terracotta warriors is an army of life sized figures created over 2000 years ago but only discovered in 1976 when some farmers digging a well discovered the underground vault. Thousands of soldiers and horses in battle formation have since been uncovered, all with individual features. Historians believe that they were ordered built by Emperor Qin Shi Huang so that he could continue to rule in death.

The warriors are in 3 pits and we visited them in reverse order seeing the smaller Pit 3 and Pit 2 which is still under excavation before seeing the huge Pit 1 with its 6000 warriors and horses ready for battle. This was truly one of those extraordinary sights - each warrior is amazing in its own right but on mass, wow!

We had thought perhaps the warriors wouldn't have great appeal to the kids but they trotted along quite happily but their little jaws really did drop when we said we were having KFC for lunch! Yes there was a KFC at the entrance to the complex and not being a fast food family the 'specialness' of this was recognised and not a crumb was left. The day did not stop there however as after we got back to Xian the bus we caught back to our end of town was a double decker - Jess couldn't believe it and we got the front seats up top!

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Photos

Warriors
Every face different

Off and riding
Xian City Wall

Up the South Gate
To Xian City Wall

Drum Tower
The original drum is long gone