(Drew)
After a rough morning and a quick breakfast, the group met richard in the lobby of the hotel. Richard is such a great guide for Xi'an he is so energetic and informitive not to mention he has amazing english. Richard was picked (1 of 2)out of his class of 150 to work in the CCP. Richard majored in english so he was a translater, which explains his amazingly fluid english. Our first stop was the history museum in Xi'an which had excavated artifacts from the Shaanxi province (where Xi'an is located). Some of the artifacts dated back thousands of years to the first dynasties. While in the museum, Richard told us a story about a friend of his that bought a piece of jade off a farmer which he bargained down to 5 yuan. The piece of jade turned out to be from the Han dynasty period and was worth about 300,000 yuan, what a deal! The museum was very large with lots of rooms on several different levels making it a very rich destination for anyone interested in ancient China.
After the musuem we had a noodle lunch which we were served various noodle dishes and we took some from each for our individual bowls. The noodles were delicious but hard to pick up with our primitive chopstick skills. After lunch we went to the ancient city wall around Xi'an. It is very large and perfectly preserved. It was built during the Ming Dynasty about 600 years ago. The wall is about 12 meters tall and has gates in the east, west, north and south. We got to the top and rented bikes to ride over 30 kilometers around the entire city. The biking took under an hour, we made pretty good time (Terry and Ric took a little bit longer :D). It was a great day for bike riding, moderate in temperature and the sun was out. Because we felt so proud of ourselves doing the entire wall, the group treated ourselves to foot massages. The foot massages turned into full body massages similar to the ones we got back in Guilin but this place was much cleaner and the massages were much nicer. The group liked them so much we might just have to go back before we leave Xi'an. A hot pot dinner was up next. This was our second hot pot meal in China and much different from the first one. The first meal had one single massive hot pot which everything was simultaniously thrown in, the one we had today each person had thier own individual hot pot so it was easier to customize your meal to your tastes. They also had a whole table of different herbs and sauces which you could play with and concoct your own special sauce, yum...
After dinner went to see the lantern show that had been set up on the city walls of Xi'an. It was amazing how many lanterns/lights and other small shops that had been set up considering we had just been there several hours earlier and there was practically nothing set up. The lantern show had a olympic theme this year with many lanterns in the shape of the olympic panda looking characters that you see all over china these days. It certainly was a busy day but im beggining to like Xi'an more and more. It might even make it into my top three list but we still have some candidates we have yet to visit.
After a rough morning and a quick breakfast, the group met richard in the lobby of the hotel. Richard is such a great guide for Xi'an he is so energetic and informitive not to mention he has amazing english. Richard was picked (1 of 2)out of his class of 150 to work in the CCP. Richard majored in english so he was a translater, which explains his amazingly fluid english. Our first stop was the history museum in Xi'an which had excavated artifacts from the Shaanxi province (where Xi'an is located). Some of the artifacts dated back thousands of years to the first dynasties. While in the museum, Richard told us a story about a friend of his that bought a piece of jade off a farmer which he bargained down to 5 yuan. The piece of jade turned out to be from the Han dynasty period and was worth about 300,000 yuan, what a deal! The museum was very large with lots of rooms on several different levels making it a very rich destination for anyone interested in ancient China.
After the musuem we had a noodle lunch which we were served various noodle dishes and we took some from each for our individual bowls. The noodles were delicious but hard to pick up with our primitive chopstick skills. After lunch we went to the ancient city wall around Xi'an. It is very large and perfectly preserved. It was built during the Ming Dynasty about 600 years ago. The wall is about 12 meters tall and has gates in the east, west, north and south. We got to the top and rented bikes to ride over 30 kilometers around the entire city. The biking took under an hour, we made pretty good time (Terry and Ric took a little bit longer :D). It was a great day for bike riding, moderate in temperature and the sun was out. Because we felt so proud of ourselves doing the entire wall, the group treated ourselves to foot massages. The foot massages turned into full body massages similar to the ones we got back in Guilin but this place was much cleaner and the massages were much nicer. The group liked them so much we might just have to go back before we leave Xi'an. A hot pot dinner was up next. This was our second hot pot meal in China and much different from the first one. The first meal had one single massive hot pot which everything was simultaniously thrown in, the one we had today each person had thier own individual hot pot so it was easier to customize your meal to your tastes. They also had a whole table of different herbs and sauces which you could play with and concoct your own special sauce, yum...
After dinner went to see the lantern show that had been set up on the city walls of Xi'an. It was amazing how many lanterns/lights and other small shops that had been set up considering we had just been there several hours earlier and there was practically nothing set up. The lantern show had a olympic theme this year with many lanterns in the shape of the olympic panda looking characters that you see all over china these days. It certainly was a busy day but im beggining to like Xi'an more and more. It might even make it into my top three list but we still have some candidates we have yet to visit.
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