Monday and Tuesday September 6 and 7
When we arrived in Xi’an the next
day it was pouring. When we met up with our tour guide he told us that the bus
was a 20-minute walk to the bus… in the rain. That was a rough walk but we all
survived it, with just a lot of wet clothes. When we got to the hotel we
switched up our plans some and just hung out in the hotel, which was super nice
might I add! Lunch was really cool, we went to a restaurant that was over a
thousand years old! They served us an insane amount of food, but their
specialty is dumplings- so incredible! There was one kind they brought out
though that was a spicy beef, but seriously my mouth went numb it was so spicy!
Then
we went to the wild goose pagoda and it had a lot of really intricate jade
carvings of Siddhartha’s life. Unfortunately though we weren’t allowed to go
into the pagoda because it has a leaning problem, and only monks can go inside
now. Afterwards we were all really excited to go to the Great Mosque at Huajue
lane, because it had some really awesome markets, as well as some really
interesting architecture. It was strange;
they made Chinese characters look like Arabic writing. And we met a really interesting guy who
spoke a good amount of languages but was clearly most fluent in Chinese.
That
night we went to a Tang Dynasty Dance show that was really good, honestly a lot
better than the Beijing Opera. The instruments were really cool and the dances
were really intricate with lots of sleeve swirling. We were also able to eat at
the show, which is a new experience for me! It seems like only expensive places
in the states allow that at shows.
The
next day it was still raining but we went to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors! What
an amazing archeological find! This place was huge! And of course it was
ridiculously crowded. So crowded that at one point someone kicked me in order
to get in front of me to see. Sometimes I wonder why some people feel like they
are more entitled than others to see these things. After that I was fed up with
trying to see anything. But I was still thoroughly impressed. On the way out I
noticed a lot of German Sheppard toys as well as some German Sheppard skins! It
really made me feel badly, I can’t handle that kind of stuff. I just love dogs
so much, and considering I use to own a German Sheppard, well that just makes
it worse.
That
night Des and I found a really cute couple that ran a liquor store right next
to the hotel. Des already knew the type of baijiu that is best, so we bought
it. Its name is Maotai and it was 53% alcohol. Needless to say most of our
group was pretty hung over the next day. It was a good way to say goodbye to
Xi’an though.
