Xi'An 西安

Since I was/am closing in on my time here in China. I decided to give a last hurrah trip towards the ancient city of Xi'An. It took a nice piece of planning, but I ended up with an overnight train to Xi'An (14 hours away by train) and a return flight back to Beijing 4 days later. It was a quick trip for sure, but with my exam schedule and such there was no other way to swing it. Either way I loved every bit of it. It felt good to travel China by myself for a change. 

So I left Beijing on the Z19 air-conditioned overnight sleeper. Tip: If you travel by overnight train in China and can't get a high-speed ticket this is the way to go. Otherwise you will have to take a hard seat train for 14 hours, which is ALWAYS crowded, dirty, and uncomfortable. Actually, some people suggest this "roughing it" hard seat travel method because it is more "authentic", I just think it sounds like a waist of time.

Beijing has several large train stations. This makes sense because the train is the primary city-to-city travel method in China. Also, with 20 million people in Beijing, this makes the 7-8 train stations in the city a necessity. I left from Beijing West : pictured below.

I arrived in Xi'An the next morning around 7:20  and made an easy transition to the Han Tang Inn, which is a great hostel situated right in the middle of the walled portion of the city. I checked in and then had a really nice coffee on their balcony (pictured below). But, I actually didn't stay for long. I heard about a tour of the terracotta soldiers starting that morning at 9:00 and I thought "well, let's go for it".

The tour was a pre-planned package with the hostel, which is the way to go in China if you don't want to wander around by yourself or you can't speak Chinese. However, I choose the tour option because of one thing-- information. In all my other experiences, when I have tried to be adventurous on my own without a tour guide it hasn't turned out for the best. I think that a personal guide is just able to give so much more information and historical insight into anywhere you go. At first I wasn't to into the idea of looking like a "tourist" but in reality I think the depth of knowledge these guides hold is well worth it.

Xi'An is primarily know for being the birthplace of the first kingdom/empire in Chinese history. The first Emperor Qin Shi Huang made Xi'An a strategic place in his unification of the warring Chinese states at that time. If you have ever seen the move "Hero" with Jet Li, then you have seen an interpretation of this exact story. Anyway, this city also became his final resting place, and let me tell you that King was CRAZY.

Above: this is the burial mound of QinShiHuang. It doesn't look like much (yes it is just that little hill) but apparently underneath that hill is a treasure trove of ancient artifacts, gold, weapons, and ... Mercury. Yes, mercury. Apparently this emperor had the genius idea that mercury gave everlasting life. So, he took it every morning with his breakfast. Thus he died early and crazy,but what is interesting is to know that archaeologists  say there are literal rivers of mercury encompassing his tomb underground. No one has opened the tomb yet because of the sensitivity of the contents inside, but from what I hear it sounds like the Emperor did a heck of a job planning his funeral.

Speaking of the funeral, this is where the Terracotta Soldier of Xi'An come in. They are actually part of the Emperor's Tomb. Even though they are located several kilometers away, these soldiers are supposed to be the honor guard for the Emperor's entrance into the afterlife.

The story goes that the Emperor, because he wanted to have the biggest army upon his arrival into the afterlife, decided to gather over 8,000 peasants and have their individual faces carved into the these Terracotta Soldiers. Moreover, it is said that these peasants were then sacrificed to imbue the soldier with their spirit (or something like that). Either way, the project took over 10,000 workers and over 40 years to complete.

The soldier were buried under stone pillars and wooden rafters (pictured above) but because of an earthquake several hundred years ago. The underground facility was damaged. Thus you can see the wavelike sagging of the pillars.

Consequently, all of the soldiers were broken in some way except one. The "Magical Archer" pictured above was not only the sole intact soldier found, but he was also the first to be found. How was he found? One day a farmer in the middle of nowhere was digging a well and chanced upon this guy, told some officials, and thus we have one of the oldest artifacts in Chinese culture. The kicker to the story was that the government then "graciously" compensated the farmer (the finder of one of China's greatest treasures) with 10 yuan, which is somewhere around 20 bucks at the time.

What most people don't know is that these soldiers were originally all painted. They had a special variety of paint and design that was supposed to make them realistic for the afterlife. However, as with most things that old, as soon as the artifacts were unearthed the paint crumbled and we are now left with these ominous figurines.

Since all of these figure were originally broken, the archaeologists have the painstaking task of piecing them all back together. From what I understand, they have a system where they unearth a little at a time, start piecing them back together, and then replace them where they think they should be standing. Don't ask me how they find all the pieces (sometimes thousands of broken pieces per soldier) or how they know where to place them. I have no clue.

There are three branches to the facility. Above: This is the largest find with the most and most well-preserved stash of soldiers. They aren't even halfway done.

Walking around town we found these creepy/cute? figurines supporting the Xi'An expo. China loves expo's which are basically an excuse for them to attract tourists and such.

Above: The south gate to the city wall surrounding Xi'An. The wall encompasses a huge portion of the city and is continuous all the way around. It has massive gates (two per side) and is about 15 yards wide at the top. It is extremely well preserved and seems like it would be really hard to invade thousands of years ago.

Luckily for me, the vendors on top of the wall rent out bicycles. They cost about $4 per 100 minutes and are about the only way to successfully complete the wall. The wall is huge and took me a solid hour to go around on my bike. Walking is really slow and doesn't help at all when you have to walk everywhere else anyway.

Before I left for Xi'An I received some key advice "tour the wall at sunset". I think that is close to the most valuable advice I have received.... ever. The city is Hot in the summer (around the mid 90's with direct sunlight).  I heard from some other friends of mine who choose to walk around mid-day that it was miserable. So, I wisely chose to go around 7pm which turned out to be perfect because the city was cooling down and the sunset was perfect.

The city has done a bang up job of revamping some parts of the wall and making everything appear very authentic. The lanterns were a nice touch.

I think the city is a really interesting juxtaposition of past and present. The walled portion of the city really keeps the inner city growth at bay and serves as a kind of reminder to how old the city is, but outside the wall city growth is rampant. There must have been a dozen new high-rise apartments being built within view of the city. I am not sure how the citizens feel with this kind of seeming contradiction, but I suppose for them it is just a reality of life. They are a people with a long history that choose to live in today's world.

This was one of my favorites parts to the city. The Muslim Quarter has a totally different feel that the rest of the Xi'An. Being this far west in China means that the islamic/arabic influence is stronger and more apparent. It takes up maybe an eighth of the city and is mainly comprised of twisting and crowded streets with butcher, hawkers, small restaurants.

I toured the Muslim corner in the early morning. This was an ideal time to enjoy the cool of the day and to get an early breakfast with any street food I could find.
Below: Think of this like a PB & J but with ground rice instead of bread and red beans instead of Jelly. It is actually really good, chewy, filling, and cheap.  They cover it with honey and rose-water.

Daoist and Cultural gates litter the city and stand for a time when Xi'An was one of the primary centers for Chinese culture and tradition. (But most of the time nowadays these gates just serve as really big street signs for places of interests or universities.)

Below: The Big Goose Pagoda is one of the older and more scenic displays of ancient Daoism in Xi'An. There was a very large community of these believers back in the day.

All in all I think my trip to Xi'An was quick for sure, but well worth the effort. I only spent 3 days in the city, but it felt like I really got to experience quite a bit. It is probably one of the oldest places I have ever been to. Also, it makes me really excited to think about traveling to all of the other ancient cities in China. Remember China has a bout a 5000 year old civilization history, so there is plenty to see and do. 

But for now, after flying back to Beijing, I am pretty set on wrapping up the semester and packing up to go to the States for a bit. I definitely plan on coming back, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really excited to see everyone back home.