China - Xi'an

From Yichang, it was off to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Although we went to Xi'an to see the soldiers, we quickly became quite impressed by the city itself - in fact, it was probably one of our favourite cities that we visited on our entire trip.

We took a taxi from the boat to the train station for our overnight trip to Xi'an. We got to the train station with enough time to check out some of the downtown area. This vendor was wandering the streets selling a wide range of items.


The view from the train station. The McDonalds where we ate lunch was just around the corner... we're so adventurous.


Our train from Yichang to Xi'an. Our first overnight train experience in China - and a good one. The bunks were quite comfortable and our cabinmates seemed nice enough and more importantly, they didn't snore.


The dining car on the train. The food was ok - although we weren't quite sure what we were eating. We decided on our meal by pointing at the stirfry on the table next to us and pointing to the word for "Chicken" in our Rough Guide... it's amazing how handy those things can be!


Xi'an is an ancient city - over 3000 years old and has a population of over 7.5 million. It marks the Eastern end of the famous Silk Road and was the capitol of China during the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties. It's downtown area is surrounded by walls, with turrets every 200 meters or so.


When we arrived, we decided to spend our first day taking a walking tour of some of the major sites of the city... resulting in a good 15-20 km of walking. The city was dotted with quaint little parks like this one all over the place.

A small temple in the park.

A busy intersection in downtown Xi'an. Notice the lack of traffic lights and the traffic cop standing in the center of the street.

This is the Bell Tower in Xi'an built in 1384. It houses a huge Bell which was wrung at dawn to tell the cities inhabitants the time. This was coupled with a very similar tower a few blocks away, called the Drum Tower, built in 1380. The drum would be struck at dusk. The bell and drum are no longer in use, except in times of war as a warning system.

A game of Mah Jong. We ran into a number of games like this near one of the markets. They tried to show me how to play, but my lack of knowledge of Cantonese/Mandarin made it rather difficult.

We decided to check out the Stele Forest (aka Beilin Museum), which is a museum of over 3000 ancient steles and sculptures dating back to the times of Confucius. This is a collection of all the old hitching posts that used to be throughout the city and have been moved to the museum grounds.

The top of each hitching post was intricately carved.

One of the steles carved with the works of Confucius.

One of the workers making an ink rubbing of a stele.

The old market area of Xi'an. A very cute area with lots of tiny shops.