Xi’an is a large city in the Shaanxi province – best known in the West perhaps as the home of the Terracotta Warriors. Actually it’s a really nice place too, so we decided to stay here for about a week to relax before setting off by rail down the Yellow River towards Shanghai.
Once again, like Beijing Xi’an demonstrates that in China they do everything on a huge scale. For instance the City Wall – in some ways it’s almost as impressive as the Great Wall. Well, it isn’t quite as long or situated in the same stunning scenery, but its actually taller and wider, and stretches for over 14km around the inner city areas. Best of all, it’s been well restored, and you can hire a bike out and cycle around the whole perimeter! We decided to go for a tandem and wobbled our way around, stopping occasionally at the various impressive watchtowers and gates. It’s a really nice way to see bits of the city.
When the city wall was restored to its present immaculate state, they also touched up the surrounding moat, and put in some gardens between the two. The result is a lovely strip of trees with pathways you can wander along as you walk along the outside of the wall. There’s even an outdoor gym section which has loads of exercise bikes, monkey bars, tyres, stretching things, twisting discs, and other metal contraptions which we couldn’t work out at all! A nice way to exercise in a pleasant garden though – much more attractive than the gyms you usually see in the UK.
Xi’an also has a few nice Pagodas – the main two are called the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda for some reason. They’re both made of bricks so look a bit like factory towers with shelves, but they are pretty big – the larger one is about 60m tall, whereas the smaller is only 45m high as the top was knocked off in an earthquake a few hundred years ago. Still, they are nice to wander around, particularly as they are both set in immaculate parks. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is now surrounded by an area that’s almost like a theme park – it’s full of festive shops and stalls, but also boasts a gigantic fountain over 60m long that sends hundreds of jets of water up every few hours to pieces by Mozart. Very surreal! We managed with our usual skill to accidentally see a performance just as we came out of the Temple Complex surrounding the Pagoda. The show went well with a giant ball of lemon-flavoured candyfloss from one of the stalls!
Of course the main attraction of Xi’an is it’s proximity to the Terracotta Warriors. Although we spent ages trying to get into the place as they’d moved the entrance (and not signposted it very well), and were absolutely soaked in a sudden downpour, it was definitely worth the effort to get to. This is a truly weird sight. The warriors themselves are impressive – detailed, elaborate, human-sized – and there are LOADS of them. A few 1000 have been unearthed so far, but these are far less than half then number thought to be buried. Some have crumbled away, but many are in really good condition – especially those that face you as you enter the first excavation ‘Pit’. Rows and rows of the things just face you, lined up, lifelike, but absolutely still - they look really spooky! OK, this may be partially because quite a few are headless…
Anyway, tomorrow we leave for Luoyang, a relatively small place near some intricately carved Caves. It’s off the tourist routes, so it should force rapid improvements in our Chinese… wish us luck!
Once again, like Beijing Xi’an demonstrates that in China they do everything on a huge scale. For instance the City Wall – in some ways it’s almost as impressive as the Great Wall. Well, it isn’t quite as long or situated in the same stunning scenery, but its actually taller and wider, and stretches for over 14km around the inner city areas. Best of all, it’s been well restored, and you can hire a bike out and cycle around the whole perimeter! We decided to go for a tandem and wobbled our way around, stopping occasionally at the various impressive watchtowers and gates. It’s a really nice way to see bits of the city.
When the city wall was restored to its present immaculate state, they also touched up the surrounding moat, and put in some gardens between the two. The result is a lovely strip of trees with pathways you can wander along as you walk along the outside of the wall. There’s even an outdoor gym section which has loads of exercise bikes, monkey bars, tyres, stretching things, twisting discs, and other metal contraptions which we couldn’t work out at all! A nice way to exercise in a pleasant garden though – much more attractive than the gyms you usually see in the UK.
Xi’an also has a few nice Pagodas – the main two are called the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda for some reason. They’re both made of bricks so look a bit like factory towers with shelves, but they are pretty big – the larger one is about 60m tall, whereas the smaller is only 45m high as the top was knocked off in an earthquake a few hundred years ago. Still, they are nice to wander around, particularly as they are both set in immaculate parks. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda is now surrounded by an area that’s almost like a theme park – it’s full of festive shops and stalls, but also boasts a gigantic fountain over 60m long that sends hundreds of jets of water up every few hours to pieces by Mozart. Very surreal! We managed with our usual skill to accidentally see a performance just as we came out of the Temple Complex surrounding the Pagoda. The show went well with a giant ball of lemon-flavoured candyfloss from one of the stalls!
Of course the main attraction of Xi’an is it’s proximity to the Terracotta Warriors. Although we spent ages trying to get into the place as they’d moved the entrance (and not signposted it very well), and were absolutely soaked in a sudden downpour, it was definitely worth the effort to get to. This is a truly weird sight. The warriors themselves are impressive – detailed, elaborate, human-sized – and there are LOADS of them. A few 1000 have been unearthed so far, but these are far less than half then number thought to be buried. Some have crumbled away, but many are in really good condition – especially those that face you as you enter the first excavation ‘Pit’. Rows and rows of the things just face you, lined up, lifelike, but absolutely still - they look really spooky! OK, this may be partially because quite a few are headless…
Anyway, tomorrow we leave for Luoyang, a relatively small place near some intricately carved Caves. It’s off the tourist routes, so it should force rapid improvements in our Chinese… wish us luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment