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Published: December 29th 2011
'We are not staying here for long' I said to Tomek when we arrived at Xi'an train station. The minute we exited the station and I saw big city buildings and crowds of people I did not like it at all. It was almost like a shock to me after beautiful and peaceful Pingyao. We got picked up by our hostel – Han Tang Inn – and we went straight for breakfast. We were starving and I really craved for some good coffee. We had to remind ourselves again that we should not have spent so much on English Breakfast especially when there was street food just outside of our hostel. Han Tang Inn is unquestionably the best hostel we stayed in so far (40Y/4£ each, thanks Jon for recommending it to us!). Just renovated, new bathrooms, underfloor heating, great lounge with extensive DVD collection and different free activities each evening (dumpling making, sauna evening, hotpot evening etc). It is located just 5 min walk from the Bell Tower and maybe 10 min from
Muslim Quartersand that was mainly the point that made us so happy.
Of course we came to Xi'an to see the one and only
Terracotta Army but the whole stay unexpectedly ended up evolving around food. The first evening we walked around Muslim Quarters and we were just charmed. We loved the atmosphere, we loved the handicrafts and souvenir market and we just could not resist all the food over there. Tomek went for a walk to take some photos and he found a houtong-like alley with great food stalls where we ended up eating during the first afternoon. We tried 4 or 5 different dishes and we just loved it. Not to mention that prices were so incredibly low so that it was hard to believe this place was just around the corner from a huge shopping mall and main street of Xi'an (3-8Y/0.3-0.80£ for a dish). We attracted a lot of attention from locals but when we started to interact with them we received a lot of thumbs-up and even more smiles;-). We had Chinese style tomato soup (nice dish), some other type of tick soup with meat, pita with cumin potato salad, grilled squid and my personal favourite - crispy duck salad in pita bread ;-) Yummy.
The handicrafts market was the best one we have seen so far. Big choice, beautiful
stuff for not disastrously high price. We ended up buying few things for ourselves as Christmas gifts, which we did not plan to buy. Nevertheless it lifted up our moods even more. We also discovered this amazing kebab place almost at the end of the Muslim Quarters. Every night we kept coming back to the same place to have this delicious, cumin reach meat filled in warm pita bread (5Y only). We took Oliver (the guy we met in Pingyao who joined us in Han Tang Inn) and he was hooked as well. We spend few hours at least each evening wandering around and trying different stuff. Tomek was amazed by the selection of sweets they had over there as well as muslim round breads they served fresh from the stone oven. As happy as we were with food selection in Xi'am it was a big shame that these dishes were not typically Chinese. We are still on the quest to get to love Chinese cuisine as much as we imagined before this trip.
The Terracotta Warriors are very easy to reach. Again, hostels will try to get you on the organised tour but there is no need for
that. There is a city bus going directly to the site from the east side of the train station. Many people ask if this place is really worth to see. Well, we think that absolutely YES it is!!! It was one of the places that we anticipated visiting before even our plan in China took any shape. There is no such similar sight anywhere in the world and it is even more amazing that it was discovered just 30 years ago – by chance really. I guess, the Emperor did everything in his power to cover the place up including killing nearly 700,000 people that worked on the construction and completion of his tomb and surrounding pits with warriors. Everybody who knew about this place was exterminated.
It is a pity that tomb has not been excavated yet but from what we heard this process may never happen as it could be too dangerous for the tomb itself. Only scanning technology allows scientists to look underneath but shame they cannot share it with the public. Also we heard that the fourth pit with terracotta warriors has now been discovered and it is nearly as big as the second one
(3000 statues). Of course the craftsmanship makes huge impression when you visit the site. No warrior has the same face, impression, shoe design or even hair style. Yes, the variety of hair style was what amazed me the most I think. It is just amazing how life like the hair pleats are and how gracious they look like. No matter if this was a statue of a simple warrior, archer or general. They are all peacefully beautiful. We visited from the third pit building the tension slowly and getting ready for the vast 1
st pit – great stuff. The exhibition centre at the sight is to be recommended as well. They made such an effort to picture the process of building the tomb as well as the excavation progress through years. This place did not disappointed us for sure.
The next day we managed to visit a Taoist masterpiece just outside of the city walls.
The Temple of Eight Immortals was amazing (still after seeing so many of them so far) but even more importantly we were able to see the Antique Market just opposite the temple. Oliver even purchased some old silver coin for his collection. Just love
panorama of 2nd Pit
around 3000 statues excavated to wander through small street like that when people are just sitting outside their homes or shops when life is passing by. So much different to the modern, busy life inside the city walls of Xi'an.
As the way there took us more time and effort than we had thought I just did not feel like going to the famous
Big Goose Pagoda. Tomek, Oliver and some French guy went to see the light show near the pagoda whilst I just enjoyed some 'Me, myself and I' time watching love stories from hostel's DVD collection. I really needed some time to relax, warm up and do nothing. We have been in cold weather for so long that staying outside became unpleasant. I know - I am Polish – I should be used to cold! It seems that it does not work this way ;-) Besides as much as I needed warm relaxation, Tomek needed some time with men. We have been spending way to much time together so this evening had some positive effects for both of us. I did not of course let the last night in Muslim Quarters pass by without me checking it out so I
joined them later to have same same good cumin meat kebab...
Having read this text again, maybe I should have called this entry:
'Fantastic street food with added benefit of Terracotta Army', since I put such an emphasis on eating??
Days went on and and I got to like this place. You know how sometimes first impressions are wrong. Well this was one of those places;-)
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