Xi'an – an Ancient Chinese City

On Sunday, May 22^nd, I left Zhuhai and started my adventure through China and Southeast Asia. My first stop was Xi'an, the capital of the Shaanxi Province. It is an ancient city with a history of over 3,000 years. It used to be the capital of China for several dynasties, especially during the Tang Dynasty (618AD – 908AD). It was important, because it represented the eastern end of the Silk Road. The historical city center was surrounded by a city wall which is still accessible. Nowadays, the city is mostly know for the Terracotta Warriors

I was picked up from the airport by my friend Tina. She came by car which was very convenient, because the airport was very far from the city. As soon as we were in the car, we took the first selfie, the Chinese style with a 45-degree angle (I was really tired from the flight and the past few days but could still smile :)).

First, she took me to Muslim Street for eating and I got to see the Bell and Drum Tower. I was amazed by the energy and liveliness of the street. There was smoke in the air from all the bbq stands. A lot of different smells filled the air. 

Tina invited me to try different things, starting with a Jing Gao which is sticky rice a kind of syrup and sugar on a stick. It was delicious. Then I tried the Chinese burger, a type of bread that is cut open and filled with chopped meat, in this case with beef and a spicy sauce. That was definitely better than a fast food burger. After more than 3 months in China, I got used to seeing fresh meat in its original form lying or hanging around. Very interesting to see was the way they made the candy. There were two kinds, one was a hard dough which they hammered apart if that makes any sense...a second one was a really long dough that they twisted around several times. The whole thing attracted many visitors.

Then, we went to a restaurant on this street to try more food. Tina ordered food for at least 4 people: cold noodles with a spicy peanut sauce (cold noodles are a specialty in Xi'an, I would have preferred them warm), beans with ginger (weirdly also cold), steamed stuffed buns with beef or lamb (the lamb one was too smelly for me), some fried pork and a kind of green vegetable (which I had before). I was completely full after this, and still I tried a sweet tomato-rice dessert back on the street. On this street I found the best Chinese food that I've had so far.

We headed back to the car and Tina took me to the hostel, so I could do check-in. At this point I need to mention that driving in China is crazy, and I was really impressed with the driving skills of Tina. She has been driving for only a year but this crazy traffic does not make her nervous.

My hostel, See Tang Hostel, was located in a pedestrian street called Ancient Cultural Street of Shuyuanmen. During the day, there is a market with craft and souvenir stands. It is a really nice and peaceful street. The staff of the hotel was really nice and helpful from the beginning on. I shared my room with 4 other people, and it was the tiniest room I've ever slept in. Two beds were already taken. I dropped off my stuff and then we went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda which is located outside of the ancient City Wall.

It is the symbol for Buddhism in Xi'an and it was originally built in 652 during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty. It was used to collect the Buddhism material from India by emperor Xuanzang. The height is 64.5 meters, but it used to be two stories shorter. Around the Pagoda there are gardens and a big fountain which does a fountain-music spectacle. This attracts as many tourists as the pagoda.

For the next day I booked a tour to the Terracotta Warriors at the hostel. Take a look at a separate post about the tour to the Terracotta Warriors.

On my third day in Xi'an I took my time with getting up and enjoyed a good breakfast on the beautiful terrace of the hostel. The weather was absolutely perfect, blue sky without any clouds. Today I was planning to ride a bike on the city wall. In many recommendations it said that the best time to do so, is at dust, so basically I had the entire day for doing something else. I walked towards Muslim Street again and took a nice picture of the Bell Tower, just because I liked it that much. On my way back to the hostel, I stopped at Starbucks and had a coffee outside in the sun. I was the only person sitting in the sun. :)

The weather was too nice for going to a museum, so I opted for a nearby park. I took the bus outside of the South Gate until the Xingqinggong Park. I walked around and enjoyed the nice weather. The interesting thing about Chinese Parks is that although they provide a place to relax, they are never completely silent. You can hear noise from every corner: a group of elderly people who talk or play games, a group of dancers that exercise to music or the park itself plays quiet, relaxing songs. I took the bus back and decided to get off a little earlier, because between the City Wall and the river, there was another nice pedestrian walk.

Around 5pm, my roommate and I headed to the City Wall. The City Wall was constructed as a square and it is about 14km long. It was built in the 14^th century during the Ming Dynasty. Each gate (south, north, east and west) is surrounded by 3 towers, and in the corners of the square, there are the watchtowers. When we wanted to buy tickets at the South Gate, they told us that due to some kind of celebration, the South Gate is closed (they couldn't tell us, because they didn't know English but there was a sign in English). They directed us to the next gate, about 1km from the South Gate. We almost gave up, because we couldn't find it, when finally I saw an entrance. There weren't any people, so no wonder, we couldn't find it. We got the tickets and had to walk to the next gate to rent some bikes. We drove all around, at least as far as we could, stopped for pictures and enjoyed a wonderful sunset over the city of Xi'an.