(Cassie)
After a very late night, we woke up luxuriously late this morning for our first day in Xi’an. We all skipped breakfast, as the breakfast service ended at ten and we weren’t meeting Richard until eleven. He greeted us in the lobby with a smile, and we headed on our way.
On the way to Big Goose Pagoda, which is located in a park outside of the city’s center, Richard gave us a bit of background on Xi’an. Originally, the city’s name was Chang’an, meaning long peace. The city’s current population is about eight million. The city has a very rich past – it was the capital of thirteen dynasties and is known as the cradle of Chinese culture. It was the original starting point of the Silk Road as well. The Han Chinese nationality, which makes up ninety-two percent of China’s population, was born in Xi’an.
During our drive, Sandy couldn’t get over the changes Xi’an has undertaken since she was last here in 2001. The government, apparently, is trying to restore Xi’an to its Tang style of architecture. Thousands of villagers were relocated in order to make room for high-rises and hotels. Among the buildings being constructed was what will eventually be the tallest in northwestern China. It will have fifty-six floors – one for each nationality in China.
When we arrived at the park we made our way through its northern square to the pagoda at its center. Called Big Goose Pagoda, it was constructed in 652 B.C. It is a Buddhist temple built for a monk named Tripitaka. He made a long and dangerous journey to India in order to find scriptures that he could bring back to China. His travels were the inspiration for the book and movie Journey to the West. The pagoda was eight stories tall, and surprisingly sturdy for its age. It managed to survive a major earthquake in the sixteenth century because of the building materials used – the bricks are made out of finely ground dirt, limestone, and sticky rice juice. We walked around and explored the small temple buildings surrounding the park before proceeding to a greatly anticipated lunch.
We had our first noodles at lunch! We’ve been having lots of rice, but no noodles or dumplings because we’ve spent most of our trip in the south of China. It was well worth the wait! We had two different varieties of noodles. One set was wide and flat and came with a meat sauce with chives and scrambled egg, while the other was spaghetti-like noodles with a very strong and pleasant flavor that came with mushrooms. We also had non-alcoholic pear beer, which was interesting but a little weird.
After lunch, we made our way to the Shaanxi History Museum. It had begun to get pretty chilly, so we were happy to be going inside. We went through three galleries, which basically provided a window into ancient Chinese civilization through artifacts and artwork. It was pretty fascinating. The first gallery held the prehistoric, Qin, and Zhou exhibit. There were a lot of Neolithic pottery and tools, as well as copious amounts of jade (unsurprisingly). I found the Zhou particularly intriguing because Richard told us that they made ritual sacrifices for tombs, much like the Egyptians. Slaves were buried alive with their dead masters so that he would be prepared in the afterlife. When they weren’t killing slaves, the people living during the Zhou dynasty were making lots of bronze tools and intricate urns. In the second gallery, we saw artifacts from the Han, Wei, and Jin dynasties, which mainly consisted of decorative tile ends, green glazed ceramic animals, and beautiful bronze mirrors. Finally, we got to the third gallery, which held all of the pieces from the Sui and Tang dynasties. These two dynasties ruled during China’s golden age, and this period of time marked Xi’an’s time as one of the largest ad most prosperous metropolises in the world. Apparently (on a random tangent) the royalty often played polo during these two dynasties. The Sui and Tang made a lot of gilded bronzeware, delicate silver urn and drinkware, and tri-colored glazed pottery (of which the horses in particular are world renowned). With the end of this third gallery we piled back into the van for some rest time at the hotel before dinner. Outside of the museum, we saw some of the most remarkable kite flying I have ever seen! A man was flying a line of small kites which stretched at least three hundred meters into the foggy sky above Xi’an.
After a wonderful nap, we went to a hot pot dinner. Similar to fondue, hot pot means that you cook your own food in a small individual pot of boiling water. While the food wasn’t great (probably partially because we were cooking it ourselves) Alex had fun boiling eggs and Alaina managed to successfully poach one! We did, however, get very excited when the amazing fried bread and cheesy frosting sauce we had fallen in love with in Yuanyang appeared again. We all had second helpings.
Full of eggs and cheesy sauce, we made our way to our final destination for the day – Xi’an’s old city wall. This wall is now the tallest and thickest city wall remaining in China. Richard told us it would be lit up for the New Year, but we weren’t prepared for how stunningly beautiful it was. Frankly, I was a bit awestruck. Even before we had gotten into the small square within the wall, we were starry eyed with lights and colors. All of the trees were strung with twinkling lights, as well as a type of light I’ve never seen that looked light dripping water. On the grass were 3D figures of flowers and bugs to complete the spring theme (Chinese New Year is also known as chun jie, or Spring Festival). Banners of light arced over the entrance into the park. We were met by more flowers within the wall. They were both mounted on the walls and on the ground. Just when we thought the lights couldn’t be more gorgeous, we climbed up the stairs onto the wall, and were met by a solid half mile of 3D lit structures and classic red lanterns. These structures included Beijing opera masks, peach trees, the Sphinx, Native American totem poles, and giant yellow hanging lanterns. There were far more spectacles than these, but they were too numerous to chronicle. I was reminded of the 4th of July as children walked by holding blinking glow wands and fake glasses with glowing smiley faces. Tired from our busy and a late bedtime the night before, we came back to the hotel for an early night.
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