The Terracotta Army is the main reason for going to Xi’an, but most of us take another day to visit the rest of the city. One of the main spots of this city is the complete wall surrounding the old city, and with a total length of 12 km. They are also open for the public to walk or ride a bike on them.
Apart from that, I liked the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in the south of the city, and the Drum Tower, an impressive building in the center of the old town. The Drum Tower was normally placed in the center of the ancient chinese citiies, together with the Bell Tower, and were used to announce the time.
I found also people in Xi’an quite more talkative and funnier than in Beijing, and even more English-speakers. Of course, I guess the fact that there was some festival happening in the city on December 25th night helped me in having a nicer feeling about the citizens.
But what I did not like at all, and will be difficult to forget about, is the pollution. In Beijing there was also pollution, but not at Xi’an’s level.
An image is worth more than one thousand words, but I will say that at any time, you could actually see the pollution at a few hundreds meter distance from you. Just amazing, but easily understandable after seeing from the train or the bus the heavy industrial area around the city.
Pollution is one of the hot topics China should focus on. It is well known in the world the issue with the pollution, and it has appeared in many occasions in the news, like its impact in the Olympics, but they really need to do something with it… for the planet, but mainly for the Chinese. It cannot be healthy when you actually feel and see you are breathing pollution.
Right after Beijing, I took a night train to Xi’an. In China, it is very common to find night trains between main cities, and it is a very convenient way of travelling for many reasons. You do not need to got the airport (normally far away from the city centre), you can sleep reasonable well, you do not need to sacrifize afternoons in going to the airport, and waiting times and so on, as the train departure is in the evening… And it is cheaper, and you save some accomodation nights. 🙂
Any way, I got to Xi’an. You might not know what Xi’an is, but it is one of the ancient capitals of China, and is now hosting one of the most important archeological treasures in the World: The Terracotta Army. This is important not only for the size of this army: more than 6000 thousand soldiers and horses, but also because of the quality of each sculture, and their uniqueness: there are not two equal soldiers. Each one has a different face, so the amount of work needed for this is even bigger.
I wondered what the origin of this army was, and here we meet again with our friend Qin Shi Huang. I wrote about him in the previous post about the Great Wall. He did lots of good things… and he also loved himself too much, apart from being afraid from death. So, as he was soooo great, even his tomb needed to be protected by an army… I guess he realized that maybe such a large army could not be a real one, so he created a fake one.
This army was found in the 60’s by some farmers from this area, and the excavation works are still on going in the three different buildings covering this amazing finding. It can be fully visited and lies a couple of kilometres from the actual tomb of the Emperor they are protecting…
Call me stupid if you want, but I would not be surprised if this is just a small part of the army..
I am in Xi’an, one of the ancient capitals of China. I arrived this morning after travelling the whole night by train from Beijing. Pretty good and convenient, as you do not need to waste time by going to the airport and so on, just sleeping in the train, and you get up in your next destination.
I stayed four days in Beijing and was ok. The first day I just walked around without almost any direction (I was about to get frozen), so I visited Tiannamen square, the Olympics area, and walked around some centric areas. The second day I did the Palace day: the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace (I was delighted with both of them). The third day I took it easy (do not forget I am on vacation), so I just walked around, through some Hutong (old neighbourhood), the Bell Tower, and went to Karaoke (I had to make the comparison China-Japan in this). The last day was the Great Wall day. Impressive to see even if you go to the touristic part, as I did. I might have found things to do for one more day, but I am looking forward to getting some warmer weather, so I preferred to skip some shopping and start moving south.
Now, Xi’an is impressing me in a quite positive way… Apart from the famous Terracotta warriors, it has a quite well preserved old city, with a complete wall, some old buildings, and a nice Christmas’ evening happening… I do not know what was it, but people were in the city centre with balloons, playing games, eating sweets, wearing hats, …
Tomorrow I will visit the rest of the city, and tomorrow I will head towards Shanghai.