Days 4-7 Xi’an Notes

On Monday we awoke to skies that actually had a hint of blue tinting the normal pollution grey. The old wall watch towers across the valley were much more clearly visible. We had one last Tibetan breakfast (well the yoghurt, was Tibetan, but the bacon and eggs a far more western touch.)
The flight to Xi’an was uneventful, and we were met at the airport by the driver we had booked, who took us to the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi. It fully lived up to it’s billing in the Lonely Planet as Xi’an’s most underrated attraction. It is the mausoleum of an early Han Emperor. Like his predecessor, the much better know Qin Shi Huang, Jingdi decided to surround his burial tomb with trenches of buried terracotta figures to help him with is life in the “afterlife”. His figurines were generally only half or quarter sized and had wooden arms, which have long since tuned to dust, so his “army” is an unuslay set of armless figurines. Jingdi was known as a more moderate and benevolent Emperor – by Chinese Emperor standards - and people like to talk about how his tomb was surrounded by burial trenches filled with terracotta figures of animals and administrative officials, not the famous warriors that surround Qin Shi Huang, a more traditional brutal tyrant. Given that they have unearthed only a percent or two of each of their respective burial trenches, it seems a little early to draw that conclusion – but it does make for an interesting story.

We dined at a famous, if somewhat touristy dumpling house that night, and must have ate close to a hundred of dumplings, most shaped liked their fillings. There were scallop shaped dumplings, and chicken shapes ones, and duck shaped ones, and even walnut shaped ones.


And speaking of nuts, Ciana has always been a bit of a dumpling nut, and this picture shows her reaction at learning that our entire meal was to be of dumplings.

The next day we did the obligatory tour of Qin Shi Huang’s tomb. Kailyn impressed our tour guide with her knowledge of Qin Shi Huang, who was one of the featured elements of a speech Kailyn gave on China this year for her school’s public speaking contest this year. The Terracotta guys were every bit as impressive as Maureen and I remembered. Their size and number clearly overwhelm Jingdi’s funerary supporting cast that we had seen the day before, but the kids left equally impressed by both.

For an early dinner we snacked our way though the Muslim quarter’s street vendor offerings. Time doesn’t permit me to provide full descriptions, but once we got feeling sufficiently adventurous to actually start trying things, we had a great time sampling unidentifiable ingredients prepared in ways we’d never seen before. Yum!

Our evening was spent at the Tang Paradise park, taking in a water, light, laser and stage show that was entertaining, yet completely incomprehensible. Before leaving for Nanchang the next day we made a stop at the Big Goose Pagoda. Regretably, the actual Pagoda was closed for repairs – but it was still an interesting place to wander around – and we lucked out and chanced upon the 12:00 fountain and music show. The fountain is really impressive. It is easily over 100 yards long, and a good 40 yards wide. It is arranged in a series of 5 or 6 tiers,, that step down in 5 or 6 foot increments. You can walk back and forth across these sections – a remarkably cooling experience on the kind of hot humid day that we visited on. We had just enough time for a quick trip back to the Muslim quarter to visit the old mosque and do a bit more snacking, before heading out to the airport for our flight to Nanchang.