We had a great night sleep. Drew especially enjoyed the shower with the head in the ceiling!! Felt like a rain shower. We had a good breakfast and met our tour guide, Helen, in the lobby. First stop, Walled City. Xi'an used to be the capital of China and this is where the government transacted its business. Hence, the need to be secure and the walled city was built. It was never attacked. The walled city is about 2,000 years old and 4 miles around. The east, west, north and south gates are ornate and beautiful. Inside the walled city are businesses and hotel, which have a restriction that they cannot be any taller than the wall itself. Pretty cool.
The walled city sports a very nice looking moat all the way around. If we had more time, it would have been fun to bike around the top of the city wall, about 1 1/2 hours. Hoping Drew goes back this summer and spends some doing that!! Helen is a great tour guide, she knows all the facts and is the Cliff Klavin of Xi'an. We love all the history, tid-pits and facts!! Bricks, mortar, stone, emperors, you name it, she knew it!
Next was a historial museum that Helen thought we would enjoy. NOT!! We just wanted to get to the Warriors!! The museum was quick and we were off to the mountains for the warriors. We first stopped at the "Official" warrior factory where they used the same clay to reproduce the warriors as trinkets. We bought a few souvenirs and then to the three pits of archeological finds. In 1974 a farmer was digging a well and discovered the warriors. Ever since then they have been digging them up. Very interesting and fun to observe. I know the warriors are coming to the Minneapolis institute of Art this fall. It will be fun to revisit them. This was quite the tourist trap and it was packed with people, mostly Chinese. Still a fascinating area.
It was about 1:30 and Drew and I were hungry. Drew had wanted me to try some special noodles called baingo. We found a restaurant that served these one inch wide noodles in a hot broth...did I say hot??? It was hotter than heck in Xi'an and we were having soup!! I pleaded for a cold Coke Lite, but they only had Coke and it was room temp (their version of cold....ugh!) Well, the soup was good and no, it didn't cool me down. When we went to the car to leave, the tire was flat, so after getting that fixed were on our way.
Next was the Wild Goose Pagoda. This Pagoda, is quite old and pretty awesome. It was situated in a round-about and the traffic was quite busy, so we didn't get to go in and took pictures from afar. Next, the hotel for showers and rest before the evening of activities.
Drew spoke with the concierge and got the low-down on a great dumpling restaurant. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the center of the walled city. This area was packed. The bell tower and drum tower were within this area. We had dinner at Xi'an finest dumpling restaurant. We had 18 different kinds and Drew thought he had had better, but I was pleased. It was fun and we laughed!! What a great trip!!
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