Harrow Xi'an!

23rd April - Arrive Xi'an

We rode into Xi'an at 8.30 on the 23rd April, hangover free, and ready to go! Then we queued with our backpacks for about 50mins for a taxi, and well frankly some of that enthusiasm waned. Got another crazy taxi ride to our hotel - The Home Inn Hotel and checked in. Rooms much like the Jinjiang Inn - bright and spacious. After checking in, we met Xu outside our hotel and he brought us on our orientation walk.

Xi'an is a walled city (I know, they feckin love their walls in China) and the centre of it is walled by this massive wall thats 14km in circumferance. We walked to the wall and hired bikes to cycle the length of it. This was really enjoyable, and apart from the smog, was nice to cycle along, wind in our hurr!

After our cycle we walked through these artists markets where we saw lots of Chinese artists writing mandarin in really interesting scripts, and others selling jewellry, and back to the hotel. Whilst walking through the market, Xu was just explaining to us some of the history of the area when this toothless old man walks up behind me and starts pointing to me and talking mandarin. Xu started laughing and translated what he said... he said "she is so so white" pointing to me!! (had to say I first thought he said "she is so so wide" so I was happy to be called just white ha ha ah!) There he was sticking his arm up beside me laughing his head off. See PAYSHTY Irish skin is IN (with the Chinese generation in the winter of their lives anywhoo!!).

After chatting up the local toothless men of Xi'an we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. We headed to a local restaurant where Xu ordered what seemed to be every dish on their menu, and once again the dishes kept coming. This restaurant was a bbq restaurant so everything was on skewers - we had everything from spicy pork to tofu strips to lamb chops, chicken wings, a great mix of food.

Some was really spicy and some had a little less heat. All in all delish. And in total it cost only 33Y for the food, i.e. less than €4 and then only 5Y for the beer, that's 60cent...it's really gonna hurt when I have to start paying real world prices of €5+ for a beer again!

24th April - Xi'an - A Wonder of the World and a Wonderful Budget

Xi'an is probably most famous for The Terracotta Warriors - now known as the 8th Wonder of the World. These are an army of 10,000 terracottta warrior statues, dating back to 700BC that were found under ground in the mid-70's near the tomb of the first emperor of China - Qin (pronounced Chin), of the Qin Dynasty. They are really impressive, as they are so fantastically preserved for being so old. Each of the individual statues are unique and vary in size depending on their rank in the army. They were said to be built around the tomb of Emperor Qin to protect him in his afterlife. They are still excavating the area and you can see the archaeologistst still at work on site.

We got a bus out to the site at about 8.30am, and had a nice snooze en route. After arriving we explored the exhibition - they have a quick short film that gives you a quick overview of the history of the Qin dynasty, then there are three large pits which house the warriors in three separate buildings, and then a large museum with artefacts that they also discovered on site - such as tools and weapons, and three large bronze horse sculptures that were also found on site.

All in all it was an interesting place, and obviously a huge tourist attraction, but it did kinda feel like the kinda place I would have gone on a school tour in primary school.

When we got back to Xi'an, we took some downtime and I started working on building my appetite for the night ahead! For tonight would be the "Dumpling Banquet", that myself, Emma, Joanne and Bethany signed up for. This is an elaborate meal served in this lovely theatre (there's an option to go and see some traditional dancing afterwards but we skipped this), and they serve you 16 various different types of dumplings. They were really fantastic. We got everything from scallop dumplings to pork dumplings to sweet walnut dumplings served at the end of the meal. We were really satisfied after the meal and it was a great traditional chinese foody experience.It was the most expensive meal on the trip, 100Yuan, so €12, but I really thought this was a price worth paying for such a good quality traditional meal.

Following the meal, we rendez-vous'd at the bar beside our hotel, The If Bar (are you sensing a trend yet) with the rest of our group and had a couple of drinks. There was live music playing, first there was just a singer guy, only in his early 20's. He had a really good voice and could deffo play guitar but I did have to laugh when he cracked out the one "Engrish" song he knew - Tears in Heaven! After this guy, a band started but at this stage we were all wiped after the long day so we crashed.

25th April - A dose of Tai Chi, Caffeine and a Win of White Rabbits

After making making the sensible decision not to go on a wild one last night, we decided to take some advice Xu offered and get up at the crack of dawn to check out the local older Chinese men and women take their morning exercise. He told us that they get up just when the sun comes up and they do everything from Tai Chi to Ping Pong to random exercises like kicking their legs up towards their heads.

We all met bleary-eyed at 6am in the lobby and made our way down towards the park beside the city wall to see what there was to see. And sure enough we were greeted by many older Chinese people getting their "gym" on. There were groups doing what looked like slowed down line dancing, others doing tai chi, others playing badmonton / pingpong.

It was really interesting for us to see the locals going about their daily routine- but judging by the quizical looks we were getting from them, it was even more interesting for them seeing our asses there. It was a really lovely morning, so I decided if you can't beat them join them so I went back to the hotel, changed my runners and headed back to the park for a quick jog. Along the park they had lots of those static gym machines that are all-weather. If you know the strand in Clontarf, you may have seen similar equipment along the walk there. So I had a jog for a while then joined some of my Chinese friends for some random exercises. They seemed to find it quite amusing but I really enjoyed getting involved with them!
Afterwards I headed back to the hotel, and en route picked up some street food from what looked like a very popular vendor. The breakfast itself consisted of what looked like a slightly thicker crepe, with a fried egg within it, brushed with a spicy chilli paste, with a sausage (of some description) in the middle. It was absolutely amazing, and well worth the 5Y (€0.60). Definitely the best breakfast solution I've had so far in China. Headed back to the hotel then to shower and pack, and myself and Miri headed to a nearby starbucks to get our caffeine fix and catch up on some postcard writing. We strolled around the Muslim Quarter afterwards, and then met with a few of the others for food. We had another night train ahead of us, and after sampling many of the local delights, a few people had a hankering for some pizza so we went to pizza hut. I decided to give the pizza a miss but they did have a chicken and rice with curry sauce that sounded like it might hit the spot so decided to give this a go. It wasn't quite your chipper curry sauce but it wasn't far off, so I left happy!

We headed back to the hotel, picked up our rucksacks and headed to get a taxi for our next train. However, getting a taxi proved a little more difficult than anticipated, as it was rush hour, so we ended up having to get a bus to the train station. So on we lumbered, each of us struggling with our ever increasing rucksacks onto a local bus, rammed with commuters during rush hour!! We just about managed not to crush anyone or ourselves and made it to the train station in one piece.
Whilst we were waiting in the busy train station some local men came over and started trying to talk to Miri. As Miri is quite tall, and typically German with natural blond hair and tanned skin the Chinese are really intrigued by hear. Xu was with us so he translated what they were asking. It was interesting to talk with them as we so often are stared at but it's hard to tell from our perspective what they're so interested in. They just were asking where we were from and what we were doing there and various things like that. You could tell by their expressions that they were just genuinely intrigued by us. But what you come to realise after a short while in China is that we, as Western looking people, are really quite a rarety in all parts of China, no matter how globalised we think the world is, there we were this evening in a heaving train station with genuinely thousands of people and we did not see one other Western looking person. It really does give you some perspective.

Once we boarded the train, we were all in good form after an enjoyable relaxing day. After having few snacks the words "Texas Hold'Em" were uttered by some in our group and instantly my ears pricked up. I took a break from writing this here blog, and joined in with Xu, Kim, Daniel, Emma and a fellow Chinese train traveller for the game. Since we're all backpackers on a budget, we weren't betting with money but with a far tastier commodity...these delicious chinese sweets called White Rabbits. At one point I was tempted to just eat my pot haha, but instead with a few strategic moves and a few bluffs - I won!! Great way to end the day. Headed off to sleep now, if I can sleep through Xu's loud snores...these open bunks do have their downsides!!