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Xian |
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| Xian is the capital of Shaanxi Province. I arrived from
Pingyao after 11 hour on the night train. Already getting used to the hard sleeper.
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| Emperor of
Qin Xian is a important historical place in China. It was the first imperial capital, founded by the emperor of Qin. Xian's most glorious days was from 221 BC until the Song dynasty in 10th century, when the capital was moved. Today Xian is mostly known for the ancient terracotta army, created by the Qin emperor. Hotel |
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Xian Train Station |
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Like Pingyao, Xian also has a city wall, though, it's not complete. Yet. They are at the moment intensively building on the wall to make it surround the whole inner city. A new tourist attraction on it's way! |
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The Muslim Quarters The hatch is that you don't know what's real or fake. Probably not even the seller knows. But, it's probably fake anyway. |
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Dumplings Talking about dumplings. If you don't know what it is, it's a thin blade of wheat paste filled with meat or vegetables (no pork at this place, of course) and then sealed. They are then steamed or fried. It's said that dumpling is the origin of the Italian ravioli, brought to Europe by Marco Polo in the 13th century. Could be true, but of course, the Italians don't agree about that. |
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Steamed dumplings on their way. |
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| Daoist Temple East of the inner city is a Taoist (or rather Daoist, according to the pinyin transcription) temple. It's still active, and for a outsider like me it very much looks like a Buddhist ceremonie. Lots of incents was burned. The temple is built in Ming style like all other temple in northern China. Nothing spectacular about it, but it was very quiet and peaceful. In front of the temple there was a bridge over a small pond. Beneath the bridge hang a bell. If you toss a coin and hit the bell, you had a lucky soul and forever connected with your destiny (or something). I didn't hit it, guess my soul isn't ready for the higher level yet. |
| Daoist vs Buddhist Close to the Daoist temple I also found a Buddhist temple. Couldn't see much of a difference. Same type of buildings and the same type of gardens. And a lot of incents. Of course they have different statues inside. The Buddhists has big Buddhas, small Buddhas, sleeping Buddhas, female Buddha's and just ordinary Buddhas. The Daoists on their side has different statues of old Gods, some with long beards, some dressed like warriors and some with a very frightening faces. I really don't know anything about those old guys. Anyway, after 10 days in China I am already getting bored with temples. To make it even more confusing they have a third similar philosophy in China, the Confusianists. |
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Big Goose Pagoda In front of the tower is a big square with fountains built in terraces. I heard later that the water streams to the rhythm of classical European music, but I didn't see that myself.
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Broad streets and modern shopping centers. View from the Bell tower. |
| Finding Internet I spend the afternoon searching the whole city for an internet bar. Finaly I gave up just to find it right outside the hotel. 5 Yuan per hour. Now I finaly learned the chinese charachters for internet, wang ba. Always crowded in those places. What does everyone do here? - Computer games! The youngsters are sitting here for hours. Most popular seems to be some arcade game "Killing-the-ghosts-and-dragons-of-the-middle-age". Internet works well everywhere in China, sometimes a bit slow, but still acceptable. I even read my local Swedish newspaper several times! |
| The Terracotta Worriors If you go to Xian, of course it's a must to visit the Terracotta Worriors. The Terracotta Army was created by the first emperor of Qin (around 200 BC) to guard his grave. He didn't just build the army but a complete village with a big hill covering the tomb. Inside the tomb, the coffin was floating in mercury and the ceiling was filled with stars. 700.000 workers was involved in this work which took 20-30 years to fulfill. Everyone involved in the construction, including mistresses, dogs and horses, was finally killed not to expose the place. It didn't help though, just a few years later it was plundered anyway. |
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| Tourist tour To get there I joined a tour group. We spent one whole day on the tour which included six stops. Busy! Never do those stupid guided Chinese tours! 1. Museum of the Xian Incident. 2. Linton Museum with artifacts from Zhou-Ming (1000 BC- 1700 AD). Nice pieces. 3. Lintons old city wall. 4. A model of the Emperor of Qin's tomb. 5. The hill at the Qin mausoleum. 6. Finally we reached the actual goal of the tour, the Terracotta Warriors. It's a huge modern museum. |
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The museum of the "Xian Incident". Someone killed someone here in 1936. There were no english labels and I didn't realy get the whole picture. |
At the Linton museum I touched the nose of the Happiness Lion. It's supposed to give you good luck and a lot of girlfriends. Really hope so. |
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Artifact at Shaanxi Museum |
| Shaanxi Museum Another half day I spend at the Shaanxi museum, south of the central city. A big and modern building. As in Linton Museum they displayed a lot of beautiful artifacts from Western Zhou until Ming-Qing dynasty. Besides, they also had some interesting Neolithic findings including a 1 million year old sculls of Homo Erectus. Shaanxi is actually one of the oldest area in the world with human activity. All artifact was labeled in English but the explaining texts was only in Chinese. They did have some guides talking both English and French. But those Chinese guides tend to speak like an tape recorder and are always in a hurry. They are usually not much of a help. |
