Fields of grain go whipping by from the window seat- I’m drifting in, I’m drifting out, catching up on sleep. I left my keys and broken dreams
It was a crazy and busy day. I’m left not knowing what to think. We didn’t get to go to see the Terra Cotta warriors today, but I guess that will be done on Friday. Today was a little different.
We got up in the morning, and got everything ready to be out the door by 8:30 so that we could eat and be ready to leave the hotel at 9 AM. I love travelling in groups. We didn’t leave the hotel until 10:30, and our trip to some famous hot springs was cancelled because there wasn’t time.
After we got out the door we headed to the Wild Goose Pagoda. It is a 7 floor pagoda that was built in honor and memory of a Buddhist monk named Xuan Zang, who travelled across the deserts of China to India and brought back Buddhist scriptures which he then translated into Chinese. He is recognized as one of the most important figures in Chinese history because of the impact that Buddhism has had in China since he returned. In his honor in 652 AD they constructed the Wild Goose Pagoda. It was pretty cool, and I had a good time walking around and looking at all the sights nearby.
For lunch we went to Panda Express, or at least the Chinese version of Panda Express. It was SOOOOO authentic, they had sweet and sour pork and General Tso’s chicken – I’ve never seen those anywhere else in China. (read: this place was as authentically Chinese as the French toast you get in the hotel breakfast buffet) I’m sure we paid a lot for lunch, so I made the most of it by eating as much expensive duck meat as I could (it was self serve all you can eat).
After lunch we headed out to the reconstruction of the original palace of Qinshi Huangdi, or the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (221 BC). He’s the emperor who first unified China (the one that the movie Hero is based off of), unified the languages and the writing system of China, built a canal system to enable him to travel (read: send troops) to any part of the country, and reinstate the Confucian Scholar system for selecting government offices. His palace was recreated on a quarter-scale by a British film company when they wanted to make a movie about him. It is now a tourist site.
A random side note about the drive over to the site. As we were driving we drove literally within 30 feet of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power plants are very common here in China, on the train ride over we saw a new nuclear power plant every 30 minutes or so. I just never realized that some people literally lived within 15 feet of the cooling stacks of a nuclear power plant. I found it a little odd, but the reconstructed palace was definitely even more different than that.
This had to be one of the most unique experiences of the trip. This place was creepy. You could tell at one point it was a bustling tourist trap complete with all sorts of junky stores and tour guides and beggars and what not, but now the place is all but abandoned. We had to wake up the guard at the front to get tickets to get in. The ticket booth was boarded over; we just handed our money to him and walked in. Besides two or three people walking around sweeping up leaves, we were the only people. The store fronts were all locked, and the paint on everything was flaking. It was like going to abandoned carnival grounds. I thought it was tons of fun, and took the opportunity to take a lot of pictures. I felt like the palace in general shows the general neglect the Chinese have for their own history, and the disconnection from and abandonment of traditional Chinese culture by the current generation.
After being there for a while we headed to the center of Xi’an, inside the old city walls, which are still completely intact, despite having been built in 1378 AD. We went on top of the wall, rented bikes, and rode around the entire city on our bikes. In total it was about 10 km around the entire downtown area of Xi’an, but riding bikes was a lot of fun. I’m glad that I know when I get back to Nanjing I have a bike waiting for me.
We headed from the city walls to dinner. We ate at a… I don’t know how to say this in English… Dumpling Palace? Anyways, they served delicious dumplings full of random things that I didn’t know that they even put in dumplings. After the all you could eat dumpling dinner we watched a show (this restaurant was the equivalent of a Chinese ‘Medieval Times’). The show was a display of… semi-traditional dances. I say semi-traditional because this place was obviously a place that all the Westerners eat. The women did traditional dances from the Tang Dynasty Era, the men did modern ballet while dressed in random ‘Chinese’ clothes. The focus was on the Tang Dynasty Era dances because the Tang (618 AD – 907 AD) and the Southern Song Dynasties (960 AD – 1279 AD) were considered the height of Chinese culture. The dances that the women did were awesome (see ‘The House of Flying Daggers’ dance scene to get a taste of what it was like), whereas the dances the men did were kind of ridiculous.
I wanted to take pictures of the whole thing because it was awesome. Unfortunately we were sitting floor level behind a table of Japanese tourists, so their cameras and cell phones were held over their heads the entire show, so I stood up and looked for a good place to get some pictures. I ended up in the back corner on the second floor, and set up my tripod. When someone asked me to take my seat I took a lesson from mom, and told them that I was my tour groups official photographer and my job was to take pictures of everything, I even got out my Hollywood Video card out of my wallet and showed it to her saying it was my photographer ID badge. She let me stand there and take pictures. After going through enough different settings, I found some that worked and got a lot of really good pictures. I win.
650+ pictures later (just today, I know…) I’m sitting here in my room trying to figure out what I want to do tomorrow. We have nothing scheduled at all, so we get to just go out and do whatever we want. I’ve been recommended to spend most of the day in the Muslim quarter of the city, so I’m sure I’ll have lots of new experiences to share tomorrow.
We got up in the morning, and got everything ready to be out the door by 8:30 so that we could eat and be ready to leave the hotel at 9 AM. I love travelling in groups. We didn’t leave the hotel until 10:30, and our trip to some famous hot springs was cancelled because there wasn’t time.
After we got out the door we headed to the Wild Goose Pagoda. It is a 7 floor pagoda that was built in honor and memory of a Buddhist monk named Xuan Zang, who travelled across the deserts of China to India and brought back Buddhist scriptures which he then translated into Chinese. He is recognized as one of the most important figures in Chinese history because of the impact that Buddhism has had in China since he returned. In his honor in 652 AD they constructed the Wild Goose Pagoda. It was pretty cool, and I had a good time walking around and looking at all the sights nearby.
For lunch we went to Panda Express, or at least the Chinese version of Panda Express. It was SOOOOO authentic, they had sweet and sour pork and General Tso’s chicken – I’ve never seen those anywhere else in China. (read: this place was as authentically Chinese as the French toast you get in the hotel breakfast buffet) I’m sure we paid a lot for lunch, so I made the most of it by eating as much expensive duck meat as I could (it was self serve all you can eat).
After lunch we headed out to the reconstruction of the original palace of Qinshi Huangdi, or the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (221 BC). He’s the emperor who first unified China (the one that the movie Hero is based off of), unified the languages and the writing system of China, built a canal system to enable him to travel (read: send troops) to any part of the country, and reinstate the Confucian Scholar system for selecting government offices. His palace was recreated on a quarter-scale by a British film company when they wanted to make a movie about him. It is now a tourist site.
A random side note about the drive over to the site. As we were driving we drove literally within 30 feet of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power plants are very common here in China, on the train ride over we saw a new nuclear power plant every 30 minutes or so. I just never realized that some people literally lived within 15 feet of the cooling stacks of a nuclear power plant. I found it a little odd, but the reconstructed palace was definitely even more different than that.
This had to be one of the most unique experiences of the trip. This place was creepy. You could tell at one point it was a bustling tourist trap complete with all sorts of junky stores and tour guides and beggars and what not, but now the place is all but abandoned. We had to wake up the guard at the front to get tickets to get in. The ticket booth was boarded over; we just handed our money to him and walked in. Besides two or three people walking around sweeping up leaves, we were the only people. The store fronts were all locked, and the paint on everything was flaking. It was like going to abandoned carnival grounds. I thought it was tons of fun, and took the opportunity to take a lot of pictures. I felt like the palace in general shows the general neglect the Chinese have for their own history, and the disconnection from and abandonment of traditional Chinese culture by the current generation.
After being there for a while we headed to the center of Xi’an, inside the old city walls, which are still completely intact, despite having been built in 1378 AD. We went on top of the wall, rented bikes, and rode around the entire city on our bikes. In total it was about 10 km around the entire downtown area of Xi’an, but riding bikes was a lot of fun. I’m glad that I know when I get back to Nanjing I have a bike waiting for me.
We headed from the city walls to dinner. We ate at a… I don’t know how to say this in English… Dumpling Palace? Anyways, they served delicious dumplings full of random things that I didn’t know that they even put in dumplings. After the all you could eat dumpling dinner we watched a show (this restaurant was the equivalent of a Chinese ‘Medieval Times’). The show was a display of… semi-traditional dances. I say semi-traditional because this place was obviously a place that all the Westerners eat. The women did traditional dances from the Tang Dynasty Era, the men did modern ballet while dressed in random ‘Chinese’ clothes. The focus was on the Tang Dynasty Era dances because the Tang (618 AD – 907 AD) and the Southern Song Dynasties (960 AD – 1279 AD) were considered the height of Chinese culture. The dances that the women did were awesome (see ‘The House of Flying Daggers’ dance scene to get a taste of what it was like), whereas the dances the men did were kind of ridiculous.
I wanted to take pictures of the whole thing because it was awesome. Unfortunately we were sitting floor level behind a table of Japanese tourists, so their cameras and cell phones were held over their heads the entire show, so I stood up and looked for a good place to get some pictures. I ended up in the back corner on the second floor, and set up my tripod. When someone asked me to take my seat I took a lesson from mom, and told them that I was my tour groups official photographer and my job was to take pictures of everything, I even got out my Hollywood Video card out of my wallet and showed it to her saying it was my photographer ID badge. She let me stand there and take pictures. After going through enough different settings, I found some that worked and got a lot of really good pictures. I win.
650+ pictures later (just today, I know…) I’m sitting here in my room trying to figure out what I want to do tomorrow. We have nothing scheduled at all, so we get to just go out and do whatever we want. I’ve been recommended to spend most of the day in the Muslim quarter of the city, so I’m sure I’ll have lots of new experiences to share tomorrow.
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