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Published: February 25th 2011
Xian city wall
There are four city gates, and to each of them are three tower entrancesSunday 13th February
Before we leave Xian we have a visit to the The Shaanxi History Museum which is not far from the Wild Goose Pagoda. Ivy meets us out front of the hotel and we proceed to cross town in the hectic traffic.
Since the Museum was opened to the public in 1991, its architectural buildings, internal apparatus, and exhibits have made it famous as a first-class museum in China.
We walked through the whole museum in under a hour and saw many artifacts and treasures found in and around Xian. It is a comprehensive museum with more than 370,000 exhibits of different times and kinds and we found the silk Road exhibits the most interesting.
We finally understood the order of the Dynasties and their importance in china's history. As some Dynasties and rulers had a different effect on the development of China whereas some had a negative effect.
The No 3 Exhibition Hall on the second floor is dedicated to the dynasties:
• the Sui (581- 618),
• Tang (618-907),
• Song (960-1279),
• Yuan (1271-1368),
• Ming (1368-1644)
• Qing (1644-1911).
Touring the Nationl Museum has certainly given us some more information and insight into placing the origins of the Great Wall and
the Terracotta Warriors in the Chinese history.
Some of the Bronze ware which has been excavated from tombs in this region were pretty spectacular too.
We both also enjoyed the Silk Road history as we've often wondered who actually used the road and for what purposes as its been well mentioned both in the Wild Goose Pagoda history as well as various areas we visited in Beijing.
An enjoyable visit and well worth a look we agreed and it gave us a nice warm up for walking along the historic Xian City Wall.
We arrived at the South gate and proceeded to walk through the tunnel and into a courtyard where we climbed the stairs up onto the massive wall.
One of the features of the Xian Wall lies in the fact that it has been preserved intact, which is rarely seen in the world. The construction of the Xian City was formally started in the seventh year of Emperor Hongwu's reign (1374) and completed in the eleventh year of Hongwu's reign (1378). After its completion, the circumference of the city wall was 13.75 kilometers long in an oblong shape.
The wall was built of earth, rammed layer upon
layer during the early time. The base layer was made of earth, quick lime, and glutinous rice extract, tempered together. This made the wall extremely strong and firm and later, the wall was totally enclosed with bricks. Located at the four corners of the wall were watchtowers and they are still standing to this day.
The walkway on top of the wall is about 12 metres wide and we walked along about 2km of it before doubling back as we started to get cold plus we couldn't possibly cover the 13 odd km on foot. You can walk, cycle or hire a electric buggy to do the full circuit of the wall and its something we wished we had done but time and weather isn't on our side.
The views from up here greatly contrast each other as within the city walls the city is old and traditional looking whereas out with the wall its much more modern with high risers and commercial looking outlets.
We could see right down towards the Bell tower from the South gate on leaving the City Wall forecourt on our way out. We are heading back to the Muslim Quarter where Ivy drops us
off and leaves us to our own devices for a couple of hours which was perfect as it meant we could grab lunch and have a look around the flea market nearby.
Muslim street is buzzing with activity as we walked through the various streets looking at the many colorful stalls and shops. It all looks even nicer during the day as it seems to be more welcoming than the night walk we had here a couple of evenings ago.
There was a street off the main Muslim Street where we passed through for a nosey and to our horror it was mainly full of abattoirs which was a real eye opener, even more so for Jill the vegetarian! 😊
Half cows and pigs trotters seem to be todays special not to mention the whole ox kidneys and tongues hanging off of tables! Its smelled a tad whiffy around here and no matter where you looked there was hanging carcass's and really dodgy looking meat lying around. People were jostling for meat and throwing bags of stuff into vans and in and out of boxes perched on their mopeds. Its like an open air butcher in a way and we're
stuck in the middle of it! We quickly dived down a back alley which took us to the safer haven of the calmer Flea market which smell of roses compared to the last street. Ah, now we know why they burn lots of incense down these lanes!
The Muslim Quarter flea market is full of bargains and we bought some little gifts and a woolly hat for next to nothing. There are some lovely woven goods and plenty of useful stuff to be had around these parts and all prices need to be halved before entering a haggling war! Next stop, food!
We are spoiled for choice on where to eat so we put the images of pigs and ox's bits right out our mind and sit down at a canteen by the roadside and prayed our pointing skills were up to scratch! Two of those and a thorough point at menu worked for us, thankfully.
Lunch consisted of very large chicken and shrimp dumplings which at less than £2 for a dozen were fantastic value and very tasty indeed. We were being smiled at by the locals as we are having a fight with the dumplings using our chopsticks...the
dumplings won by the way!!
Muslim street in Xian is a must see as its got real character and the sights, smells and sounds are what we envisaged China to be like.
We're now zooming across town in the back of the car and avoiding the fearless moped cyclists. Next stop, Xian Airport. We bid farewell to Ivy after she does all the checking in and baggage bit and we make our way to departures where another Eastern China Airline plane is waiting to take us to Shanghai!! Fingers crossed for warmer weather!
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bruno vieira
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good pictures! You know the beach Sirituba, is in the Amazon, Brazil. http://luciebruno.blogspot.com/2011/02/passeio-praia-de-sirituba.html # more Congratulations on your blog!