My Week of Adventures, Part 6: Terracotta Warriors

The following day of our vacation we decided to visit the Terracotta Warriors. Before my trip to China, I was most excited to see this impressive collection, and I was happy to find out it's located less than an hour from Xi'an. Check out the Wikipedia article for more information here.

Everyone warned us to stay away from the tourist sites during the National Day break since thousands of Chinese would mobilize to visit the exact same places. Still, we all wanted to see the Terracotta Army, so we decided to brave the crowd nonetheless.

After an hour bus ride turned into a two and a half hour trip due to the amount of traffic on the small dirt road, we finally arrived at the site only to find this:

In this picture, probably a hundred people are crowded around a glass case containing something (I didn't bother to squeeze through the crowd to find out what). Most of these people couldn't even see it, but they were holding their cameras above their heads just to get a picture of whatever is inside.

Finally, we arrived at the main pit of the site, where the majority of the army is located. The sight of all these figures was extraordinary, although it required a lot more crowd-maneuvering just to get a clear view.

Here are some more warriors from close up. The really amazing thing about these figures is that fact that each one has different facial characteristics, which has led to the belief that they were modeled after the emperor's actual army.

In addition to the soldiers, we saw this cool hummingbird-like moth collecting nectar from these flowers. It was really cool and the only part of the exhibit that wasn't insanely crowded.

My Week of Adventures, Part 5: Cycling the city walls

National Week vacation was almost a month ago, and I'm still blogging about it. Hopefully it's worth the wait.

The next day of our vacation we went to visit the city walls of Xi'an. Xi'an has some of the oldest and best preserved city walls in all of China. There are only a handful of other cities in China with existing city walls, like Pingyao 平遥 and Nanjing 南京. The first city walls in Chang'an (the ancient name of Xi'an) were built starting in 194 BCE. The existing walls, however, were built during the Ming Dynasty in 1370. They encircle about 12 square kilometers, which is just the center of the modern-day Xi'an metropolis.

This is one of the gates near the south entrance on top of the wall. The height of the walls offers a pretty good view of Xi'an from above, but in all honesty there's not too much to see. The coolest part is that you can rent bikes and turn the 3-4 hours it takes to circle the walls by foot into an hour and a half pleasure cruise!

Here's the gang about halfway through our ride.

Shelby and I are looking fierce on a bicycle built for two.

My Week of Adventures, Part 4: Shaaanxi History Museum

First of all, I have to apologize for my highly sporadic updates. I'm still alive and well, just really busy. Secondly, I have to post this picture of my niece Brenna because it's absolutely the most adorable thing I've ever seen.
So, back to my week of vacation. Before we made our way to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, we stopped at the Shaanxi History Museum (陕西历史博物馆 Shaanxi Lishi Bowuguan), which I had heard from more than one source is the best museum in all of China. See below: That's quite a boast if you ask me, but it did not disappoint. It houses over 300,000 items in four galleries, including murals, paintings, pottery, coins, and silver objects.

It was all very nice but the best part by far was this picture below:
The gold piece on the right is explained as "Taxation gold in shape of a horse hoof", while the piece on the right is "Taxation gold in shape of a unicorn hoof".
How do they know what a unicorn hoof looks like? And why does it differ so drastically from the horse hoof? The world may never know...

My Week of Adventures, Part 3: 大雁塔 Revisited

The second day of our travels, we went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (大雁塔 Dayanta), but this time I actually paid the 40 yuan to get inside. Turns out, though, there is a separate ticket to get into the tower itself, so we just walked around the grounds.

The Big Pagoda in all its glory.

Elinor and David looking like all the Japanese tourists at the Pagoda that day (who just happened to be members of the Japanese Special Olympics team!)

I love the contrast between the serenity of the Buddhist temple and the numerous cranes lining the sky in the background.

A student recently told me that the Big Wild Goose Pagoda is the same building that is pictured on Chinese take-out cartons.
Do you see the resemblance?

My Week of Adventures, Part 2: 大清真寺

On the first day of our vacation, we headed to the Muslim district of Xi'an, located in the center of the city, just near the Drum Tower. After winding through streets lined with vendors selling all kinds of Chinese souvenirs (I picked up a Mao lighter for a reasonable price), we made our way to the Great Mosque (大清真寺 Da Qingzhensi). Here's some information courtesy of Archnet.com:

"The Great Mosque of Xian is the largest and best preserved of the early mosques of China. Built primarily in the Ming Dynasty when Chinese architectural elements were synthesized into mosque architecture, the mosque resembles a fifteenth century Buddhist temple with its single axis lined with courtyards and pavilions.

The Great Mosque of Xian is thought to have existed as early as the seventh century. The mosque that stands today, however, was begun in 1392 in the twenty-fifth year of the Ming Dynasty. It was ostensibly founded by naval admiral and hajji Cheng Ho, the son of a prestigious Muslim family and famous for clearing the China Sea of pirates. Since the fourteenth century, the mosque has undergone numerous reconstructions. Most of the buildings existing today are from the Ming and Qing Dynasties of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The mosque was constructed on Hua Jue Lane just outside the city walls built by the Ming Dynasty, in what was once the jiao-fang neighborhood for foreigners to the northwest of the city. Today, this neighborhood is part of Xian proper, with the city's famous Drum Tower a block away.

The mosque occupies a narrow lot about 48 meters by 248 meters, and the precinct walls enclose a total area of 12,000 square meters. Unlike many Chinese mosques, it has the layout of a Chinese temple: successive courtyards on a single axis with pavilions and pagodas adapted to suit Islamic function. Unlike a typical Buddhist temple, however, the grand axis of the Great Mosque of Xian is aligned from east to west, facing Mecca. Five successive courtyards, each with a signature pavilion, screen, or freestanding gateway, lead to the prayer hall located at the western end of the axis. "

The mosque provided an interesting mix of Chinese architecture and Muslim functionality.

The only worshipers in the mosque were men who wandered around the grounds wearing white linen caps.

Here we are situated in front of the prayer hall at the west end of the mosque (facing Mecca). We were lucky enough to arrive right before the Muslim prayer time (Salaah) began. There was a microphone in the hall so that worshipers could hear the prayer instructions, but whoever was nearest kept on coughing and burping, which was broadcast for the whole mosque to hear. It didn't quite facilitate a spiritually transcendent atmosphere.

My Week of Adventures, Part 1: 白酒

After a week of vacation, I'm back to the daily grind. Because of my busy schedule as of late, I'll slowly be catching up on all our amazing activities during the National Day holiday.

David and Elinor arrived Friday night in Xi'an where we greeted them with cheap beer and 白酒or Baijiu, a kind of Chinese alcohol. Baijiu, just like any other alcohol, runs the gambit on quality, from fancy and pretty delicious to cheap and smelling of formaldehyde. I'm sorry to say the particular kind we had that night was more of the latter, being that it only cost 3 yuan, or approximately 40 cents.

This picture captures the various reactions quite nicely, although this was even before we drank any.

Let's Beer!