Xi'An
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
114
130
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Xi'an,
Shaanxi,
China
Saturday, November 1, 2008
For lunch most of us were going to sample a Mongolian hotpot, but Maud being back to some type of normality was adamant that she was having a Pizza Hut. So we went our separate ways, me enjoying the hotpot which is basically a pot of two steaming broths in the middle of the table, one spicy and one not so spicy, into which you throw meats, veg and noodles and them fish them out with your chopsticks, it was delicious. Poor Maud, she was told she would have to wait 45 minutes for a table at Pizza Hut and so had to go to Haagen Dazs for ice cream instead !! Helen spent the rest of the afternoon in bed catching up on lost sleep while myself and some of the rest of the group went for good if quite painful massages.
With no itinerary the following day most of the group decided to do a dim sum meal that evening followed by a bit of a drink later on.
Xi'An City Wall
I think Linda and Ruth needed some alone time and Ronit wasn't feeling well. So there were just six of us for the dim sum meal and also in the entire restaurant to begin with, thankfully a few more people came to eat there later on or it would have been a bit of a dire experience. We made the most of it though by drinking 5 bottles of wine and 5 beers between the 6 of us, whilst being served over 30 types of dim sum, some in the shape of the filling, hence the waitress saying things like " one look like pig is pork, one look like duck is duck" very helpful. After stuffing our faces it was time to hit the best place in town (according to Frank), the 1 plus 1 bar, but not before trying to catch the best fountain show in Asia at the Big Goose Pagoda which was supposed to start at 9pm. Arriving at 9pm we caught the last part of the show because it actually started at 8:30 (thanks for the wrong info Frank), but we made our own fun by taking some crazy jumping pictures and then getting 4 local Chinese girls involved. The pagoda was really nice and we had a stroll around while taking some dodgy photos with some of the statues dotted around, before we headed back to the hotel to pick up Ronit and also down a bottle of disgusting rice wine between us to keep the party going.
Arriving at the bar/club it had a weird entrance way with some bloke dressed like the freaky girl from The Ring and some other strange Halloween stuff, oh yeah plus the security guards with bullet proof vests and white army type helmets, really weird.
Xi'An City Wall
Once in the club though it was admittedly quite a cool place, with a couple of dance floors a pool courtyard with balcony bar and a lounge bar where we managed to get a table. Another strange concept was that it seemed to be bottle service only, but after finding out a bottle of Finlandia vodka was only $40 and a bit of Chinese lingo from Keith we were all set for the drinking games ahead. We introduced the group to a few drinking games we have learnt along the way and before we knew it we were on the second bottle of vodka. After that the night was a blur of dancing (on the bar), meeting the locals and the usual crazy antics, including me ordering a third bottle of vodka, for some reason I will never work out.Uuuuuurgh. The next morning/afternoon wasn't the best one we have woken up to, which seemed to be the same for everyone else who was out that night, as we seemed to all get up at around the same time. It didn't take much for us all to agree that a Pizza Hut was in order, but not before Carden had told us she had lost her camera that night and must have left it in the taxi as she had it when we left the club...nightmare.
We called Frank to see if he could help locate the camera by ringing the taxi firms, but he pretty much refused to help saying there were too many to ring, not very helpful then, poor Carden, she had lost all her photos from this trip so far and a very similar Africa trip to us, but things could get worse. After waiting 45 minutes for a table at Pizza Hut, we all ordered our meals but when they came Carden's was wrong and she sent it back, big mistake, as 1 hour later she still didn't have a pizza and was frog marching the server to the kitchen to show him how one was made, it was time to leave.
Xi'An City Wall
Still not feeling great we had a snooze that afternoon before meeting up with everyone for a Peking duck meal, but there seemed to be a few casualties from the previous night and there weren't many takers, so we settled for a couple of hours of internet and a McDonalds ice cream instead.The next morning was set for our visit to the terracotta soldiers about 2 hours drive from Xi'An. According to the blurb the soldiers are the eighth wonder of the world. I wouldn't go that far, Macchu Picchu and Angkor Wat are far more stunning, but the soldiers were impressive, especially how well they had been preserved. It was interesting to see the colours they were painted before they were uncovered, but as soon as they are unearthed it seems that the paint fades and the colours disappear, so they have actually stopped exhuming the soldiers until they find a way of protecting them. It was also amazing to see how different each soldier was both facially and their stance. It must have taken so long to create each model, some even having details like tread on their shoes or braids in their hair, before entombing them in their trenches held up by wooden beams and covered with dirt.
We visited the largest pit first, Pit 2, which is the one you see on all the TV programs. It is a huge site, contained in something like an airport hangar, enclosed are hundreds of soldiers all facing the front of the arena in both fully restored form and also as they had been found when the excavation took place.
Wierd hotel products
Apparently this site represented a full battle formation for the emperor with chariots, swordsmen and archers all organized into trenches 4 abreast, a pretty amazing sight considering they were 2,200 years old.Next was Pit 3, a lot smaller with the guards facing each other in a formation set for welcoming the emperor, these warriors were the most well preserved of all the sites. Finally Pit 1, in which very little had been excavated, which was interesting to see, as you could perceive how they found the sites before they had brushed away the dirt in the trenches to reveal the soldiers.
After watching a very 70's film about how the warriors and site were built it was time for another set lunch, this time being quite tasty but cold which sort of ruined the whole meal. Then a visit to a silk centre were we got shown how silk was made from the cocoons of the silk worm which was very informative as we hadn't seen this side of the process before, plus entertaining as the tour was from a guide known as Mr. Fish. The end products were very nice, but a bit overpriced in comparison to what we had seen in both India and Vietnam, so no credit cards required here.
After the Terracotta Warriors it was back to Xi'An where we wandered around the Muslim quarter and found a few bargain t-shirts before setting off to the train station to catch the overnight sleeper to Beijing. The sleeper didn't have private compartments like the previous one, but it was still reasonably comfortable as it was a newer train, plus it was a good experience to share you bedroom with the local people and their rice wine and noodles. Xi'An had been an improvement on the other places we had been in China so far, but I think everyone was looking forward to getting to the capital of China to see something really inspiring.
