Xian

We arrived in Xian by bullet train and went downtown to our hotel in the "Old City" center.  Unfortunately, "Old City" is a bit of a misnomer.  Though the city walls still stand, we would estimate that 80% of the construction inside the walls is new construction.  About the only difference between the old city and the new city outside the walls is a height restriction in old town.   And there is lots of construction in Xian -- it's a "small" city in China with "only" 9 million people.

The first evening we went wandering out to dinner without a guide.  The experience itself was amusing as Katy went from person to person asking (in her limited Mandarin) "excuse me please, may I ask, do you speak English?"  The extent of English speaking was very minimal -- almost the only folks who had any English were the younger generation -- and most of them have learned by reading and did not speak much at all.

Eventually, we wound up at what may well be the best dumpling restaurant in the world -- De Fa Chang.  It was hard to find but well worth the effort.  The dough was light and airy; the fillings were varied and tasty.  Perhaps most amusingly, the pastries were often shaped in a way that conveyed the contents -- so the duck dumplings had a duck shape, for example.

Our first full day in Xian began with a trip to the top of the city walls.  The view was quite nice and we had a great time taking a short bike ride, 1/4 way around the wall.  This was also the first time that we got accosted for pictures by Chinese tourists.  Kind of neat.

After the wall, we went to the Shananxi Provincial Museum which is, honestly, one of the better museums we've been in.  Devoted to the Silk Road, we saw a visual history of exploration, travel and commerce that was fascinating.  For lunch, we went to a very local Muslim Chinese restaurant where no English was spoken but the food was spicy hot and interesting.    The afternoon was spent at two of the "big" sights in Xian -- the old Bell Tower and the Great Mosque.  The locals say that Muslims have been in Xian since the 700s AD, but historians think it was likely a bit later.

Dinner was particularly interesting.  Once again, we went wandering to find a local Xian restaurant that the guide books had recommended.  We found it and sat down.  As recommended we ordered one of the Xian specialties -- a soup of some sort.  A short while later several round pita-like pieces of bread were put on our table.  Paul started to think about eating them immediately, when a kind lady sitting next to us (who spoke a smattering of English) made it clear we should not -- the bread was to be broken up into tiny pieces by hand, by us and then it was whisked away to be added to the soup to thicken it.  It was delicious.

Day two brought a highlight -- the Terra Cotta warriors.  [An aside -- on the way out to the site, we passed a coal fired electric generation plant with a line up of more than 30 coal trucks waiting to get in and make deliveries.  We understood better why there was so much pollution.]

The warriors themselves live up to their billing.  The field in which they are buried is quite large and the number of them rather overwhelming.   It makes you wonder at how people try to cheat death -- and in some ways the effort here (from roughly 200 BC!) was quite reminiscent of  the pyramids.  We were overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place (and also by the heat inside the un-airconditioned facility).  One amusing note -- at one point Kyle dropped his water bottle over the side into the pit where the warriors are.  Thankfully, it hung up on a ledge and didn't break one of the warriors.  Overall, however, the views were simply amazing and we lingered for several hours, before getting back in the car and heading to the Xian airport for our flight to Zhangjiajie.