Beijing to Xi'an

So, here’s the first attempt at a blog….

I got to Beijing on August 29th after a super long 13 hour flight which ended in some horrible turbulence thanks to the layer of smog over Beijing. The plane just plummeted probably 100 feet twice! That was a little too much to be fun. The man next to me, a young Chinese businessman was like, “don’t worry, it’s fine it’s okay!” Poor guy. He was trying to comfort me and I’m pretty sure he was more freaked out than I was. But we landed safely – I think the turbulence is normal coming into this city.
Anyways, when we got into Beijing there was someone from the program waiting for us which was really good because I was not quite sure how I was going to be getting from the airport to the hotel where we were staying. We got to the hotel which turned out to be beautiful and super nice because China is one of the few places where the dollar is still worth something (it’s almost 7 yuan/kuai to the dollar). We spent a couple of days tromping around Beijing and then left on Sunday for our study trip.
Sunday night we took an over night train to Xi’an – about a 14 hour train ride… That was pretty fun except that we were woken at about 5:30 a.m. by the line of slightly older men queuing to hawk some major loogies in the sinks at the end (our end) of the car. We finally got to Xi’an at 7:00 a.m. and maneuvered our way through the masses at the train station. I think the best way to understand how many people are in China would be to hang out at a train station. There are just so many people waiting for people, pushing through people, arriving and searching for things in every direction. Also, the Chinese don’t really seem to believe in lines and the only way someone is not going to cut you off is if you cut them off. It’s exhausting. Somehow we all (some 60 American tourists) managed to get to our buses which took us to probably one of the nicest hotels in Xi’an. It was right in between these two major towers, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower.
After breakfast (and a much needed shower) at the hotel we were carted off to see the Terracotta Warriors (Qin dynasty). They were incredible and not at all what I was expecting. Instead of a few statues of soldiers standing tall in the grass (I am still not sure why I was expecting that...) it was a series of three pits with rows of soldiers dug out from underground. In the Chinese touristy style it looked like the soldiers were still being worked on (with some tools and blankets in the pits) but the truth is nothing has been excavated in 10+ years because as soon as the soldiers hit the coal polluted air they would fall apart, so nothing has been done for some time as they try to figure out how to excavate without further damaging the soldiers and horses.
In the afternoon we went to the city wall – the old one as the city has expanded maybe five times past the wall… and rented bikes for what we thought would be a nice ride around the outskirts on the old city. Not so much. Instead we rented the bikes, which turned out to be horrible bikes, and started our journey atop the wall. The cobblestones are awful on bad bikes and the wall was a lot longer than expected but it was still really cool to see all the older rooftops of Xi’an. After finally finishing the wall we had a group dinner at an apparently famous jiao zi (dumpling) restaurant just next to our hotel. There we were served some 15 courses of jiao zi with all sorts of fillings. Some that I remember are, spicy chicken mushroom, pork (the Chinese love their pork), tomato, beef, shrimp, chicken – which were folded to look like chickens, wild rice, vegetable, and a whole bunch more I just can’t quite remember. It was really good and I left stuffed. After dinner a couple of us explored the streets of Xi’an and wandered through a night market and some really cool side streets on the city.
The next day we went to the great mosque – mostly built in the Ming dynasty as early as the seventh century. It is one of the oldest, largest and most preserved mosques in China and definitely deserves all of these titles. There were maybe 5 or 6 main courtyards with all sorts of small courtyards off the main row. The walls blocked out most of the city noise so while we walked through a VERY crowded market to get there, inside was really quiet and peaceful.
That afternoon a few of us took a taxi to this huge pagoda, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. That too was beautiful and we opted to pay to climb its entrance fee to climb the seven stories to the top of the pagoda. From there we could see exactly how much we could not see due to the pollution and enormousness of Xi’an. Buildings and city stretched for miles. I suppose it didn’t help that is was raining off and on though either…
Anyways, later in the afternoon we left to take a plane for Chengdu…