Today marked my birthday, and we altered our plans, likely due to the weather, postponing our visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors until tomorrow. The day was sunny and quite warm, reaching into the 90s, but relatively dry. We started our day around 9 am, visiting the Xi'an City Walls, which are reputed to be among the best-preserved city walls in China. They were massive and quite impressive, and you could rent bikes to ride seemingly endlessly! We walked about 2 km of the total 15 or 16 km, leaving much more to explore. We also took a couple of photos of Summer and Tina before departing from the City Walls.
Next, we headed to the Yongxingfang Intangible Cultural Heritage District, where we had lunch after strolling through this culinary area filled with regional foods and snacks. We even tried some rice wine and participated in "breaking of wine bowls" like in the pictures below. We have a short video of us breaking our bowls, but I haven't yet figured out how to upload videos to my entries!
We enjoyed another delightful lunch at a small café, ordering soup while Tina ventured out to bring back several additional dishes from some food stalls, which is apparently acceptable. More food pictures followed, of course! After lunch, we spent a few hours at the hotel before going out again to visit the Little Wild Goose Pagoda and the Xi'an Museum, both located in the same large park. I took some photos of the pagoda and my favorite pieces in the museum. Summer mentioned that the afternoon was much less crowded than the morning, though Michael felt a bit overwhelmed by the bustle of the Chinese crowds!
Our final adventure for the day was exploring the Muslim Quarter, home to about 100,000 Chinese Muslims, which is around 4-5% of the overall population. Despite this, it's a popular spot to enjoy fantastic Muslim/Chinese snacks and dishes. We saw whole squid on skewers, roasted lamb, sheep heads and feet, beautiful breads, and numerous spice shops! We then had a relatively light dinner at one of the Muslim restaurants, including stuffed soup dumplings, tofu, congee, and lamb skewers—more than enough food. After a bit more walking, we returned to our hotel by 8 pm, the earliest we've come back on any day so far. It was nice to get to bed early since we have another full day tomorrow, with the Terra Cotta Warriors visit and later an evening musical performance.
The last photo captures a significant discussion between Summer, Tina, and our Muslim server about our menu choices! We keep reminding them not to go overboard with the food orders, and tonight we actually managed to have a modest number of dishes. It was a wonderful birthday, and considering the time differences, it felt like almost two days of celebration!
Kavin Jay is set to perform in the capital on June 27 and 28.
Cones, cups, sticks, and tubs, oh my!
Tuesday, June 24th marked our final full day in Xi'an. We began our day at 8:30 under cloudy skies that brought the temperatures down to the high 70s, accompanied by a lovely breeze that was truly refreshing. Our first destination was a half-day visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors. I have shared a separate blog featuring only photos from that visit, so here I'll just mention that it was an incredible experience and encourage you to check out that blog!
One or two photographs of the Terra Cotta Warriors simply can't capture the essence of this incredible location, so I'm planning to create a blog showcasing all the images of the warriors—whether they are preserved, undergoing preservation, or the throngs of visitors. Our guide, Summer, mentioned that as many as 100,000 people visit the Warriors each day! It was incredibly crowded, but thankfully, the entire site has been air-conditioned since two years ago! Those who visited before that, particularly in the summer, can only recall the crowds, heat, and humidity! Nevertheless, it’s absolutely worth it, as the warriors are truly an astonishing "eighth wonder of the world."
Today was my birthday, and our plans changed, likely due to the weather, so we decided to postpone our visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors until tomorrow. The weather was sunny and fairly warm, with temperatures in the 90s, but it was relatively dry. We began our day around 9 am and visited the Xi'an City Walls, which are known to be among the best-preserved city walls in China. They were enormous and quite impressive, with options to rent bikes for a seemingly endless ride! We managed to walk about 2 km of the total 15 or 16 km, leaving much more to explore.