Our main event June 18th was to take the high speed train to Xi'an. On the way to the train station, we stopped by the Zhihua Temple. It is a Buddhist Temple that is famous for its traditional Buddhist chanting. It was quite beautiful and haunting. It reminded me of the Native American chanting you might hear in the Pacific Northwest. Then we headed to lunch before the high speed train. It wasn't the best lunch we've had. Very slow service, but it served the purpose.
Monks playing music
Then on to Xi'an on the high speed train. We went 800 miles in about 4 hours. The train averaged close to 200 mph. It was a wonderful ride. There was a woman that cleaned the train car continuously. There were other women who offered hot tea. What luxury. The seats had so much leg room. The US airlines could learn about place design from the Chinese.
Huge apartment building complexes on the way to Xian.
Many were unfinished
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| Comfy train car seats |
Then off to our hotel for much needed sleep.
June 19th we were off to see the Terracotta Soldiers. Wow. Walking into Pit 1 gave me chills. Each one of the soldiers has a different face. They are most likely modeled after real soldiers that served emperor Qin Shihuangdi who ruled until 221BCE. He was the 1st emperor and was able to unify China. He was quite a brutal emperor, but did bring some great things to China like a unified language, uniform weights and measures, unified money, unified written language. He began building his tomb early on in his reign. It took 36 years to build. They have found 7000 soldiers, archers, and horses. Of the thousands of soldiers that originally were created, most are still in pieces today. A small percentage of the soldiers have been restored and are standing guard again. These soldiers stood guard over the Emperor's tomb.
Pit One, the largest excavated area, huge airplane hangar size room
Super skinny soldier
Kneeling archer
Each soldier has a different face
The tomb is a hill behind the soldiers. It hasn't been excavated and probably won't be. Apparently there are high levels of mercury in the tomb and it may be booby trapped.
Bronze chariot
Tomb of emperor, the hill in the distance.
This would have prevented tomb robbers.There are also two bronze chariots that has been excavated which were housed in wooden coffins. They are on display in a hall on the premises. There is also a Pit 2 & Pit 3 which are both partially excavated. What an amazing experience.
I have learned a few things about the Chinese people. First of all, they don't believe in taking turns. If you want to see something or get somewhere, you have to push. Also, they love to feed you a lot! Finally, they are some of the nicest people and really seem to take pride in their country.
Xi'an was the capital until the Ming Dynasty in about the 1300's and was called Chang'An. They have big hopes for their city. Currently there are 8 million residents in the city. They have so many high rise apartments in this city that it would boggle your mind. Cranes everywhere. Some of the developments have 20, 30, 99 building in them. It's weird though because many of these buildings are either unfinished or empty. They are ghost buildings. They are building in anticipation of a big population growth. Our guide said that in the next 10-20 years they hope to be a city of 12 million people. Here is an example of the buildings. (see the picture above)
We went to a shadow puppet show. The performers were a little lackluster in their performances, but it gave us a good idea of the art form.
Then we visited the old city walls. Xi'an built city walls in 1370. They still surround the main city core today. We climbed the walls and walked for a little bit in the 90+ degree heat. The walls are quite thick and people often ride bikes around them. The walls are 9 miles long.
Our guide, Ping
Building on top of old city walls
passageway through wall, very thick to ward off invaders
Finally, we took a walk through the Muslim area of Xi'an to the Great Mosque. There are 100,000 Chinese Muslims in Xi'an. The mosque was built in 742AD and is still in use today. It is a peaceful oasis in the middle of a busy shopping area
Clocks show the call to prayer hours
. We walked back through the Muslim quarter where I purchased a suitcase (mine started to rip) for 210 yuan which is about $30. The merchant started at 350 yuan but our tour guide,Ping, helped me bargain her down. I just hope it gets me back home to Seattle.
The Muslim quarter is an amazing place. You can purchase meat right off the sheep or goat that is being carved on the street or deep fried crab. Wow, it makes the Pike Place Market look tame.
And when we though we couldn't eat anymore, we walked to a delicious dumpling dinner. We counted something like 15 or 16 kinds of dumplings that we were served. Of course there is beer served with most meals. At least you know you won't get sick from drinking beer. It's a very light beer, 3% alcohol. I'm not sure I'll every be offered this much food again. Our tour guide arranges all the meals and tours. We have a bus that transports us from place to place. We are very well taken care of.
June 20th Xi'an/Shanghai
We visited a school today. It's grades 1-9. We were welcomed like dignitaries. They had prepared a fruit/veggie bowl for each of us. Like we needed any more food at this point. The head master and the principal greeted us. There was the obligatory exchanging of gifts and then we were off to visit a classroom. The teachers have 55-60 students in each class. All the students wear uniforms and teachers have to wear a uniform on Mondays. The class was an English class where students were learning to speak English. They had to stand when they spoke. They were learning about the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and how to explain it in English. Some of the students were more proficient than others with their English. This was a 7th grade class. I think they were very nervous to have us there. I would be too. They students presented each of us a sachet which is one of the things they get during the Dragon Boat festival. It turns out the teacher has been teaching for less than a year, but she was very good. She had a PowerPoint prepared for her lesson. They use a state mandated English program and English is one of the subjects tested on the high school and college entrance exams. After we visited the classroom, we had a chance to speak with the teachers. They were quite nice and excited to have us there. The teacher I spoke with wants to move to America when she retires at 55 years old. She might just do that. She also told me she has taught herself English and now teaches it to students. This was a private school.
Student artwork
Poster showing the top students in the school
Students in China have to take a very rigorous high school and college entrance exam. These are held on the same dates every year, so the city gets a little quieter to allow students to study. They have 9 million students taking the college entrance exam every year and 7 million pass it in all of China. They have different levels of colleges much like we do in the US. They do have to pay for college, but it's not anything compared to our fees. The school day is from 8am to 5:15pm. It's a long day. They have 8 classes during the day. Each day, after their 1st class, they have a 40 minutes exercise class where they do group exercises. Sounds a little like aerobics.
We said our goodbyes to the school and headed to the airport on our way to Shanghai. We've now been sitting on the airplane waiting to take off for close to 2 hours. Not sure what the hold up is. At least I get a chance to write this blog entry.
Arrived in Shanghai after a 2 hour delay taking off and a short delay getting off the plane. We were never told why we left 2 hours late. Of course, they fed us on a 2 hour flight. The Chinese people are very generous with food. After the flight we went to the Pearl TV tower to see Shanghai at night. It was an amazing view. One level down from the main level is a glass bottomed level. I wasn't too keen about walking on this, but did for the photo opportunity.
Glass bottomed floor
View from the tower
We got to the hotel about 10pm and still hadn't had dinner yet. A few of us decided to take a cab to a brew pub close by recommended by Jeff, our China expert. We got there super hungry, and they had stopped serving dinner, but luckily had snacks. Our 1st dinner in Shanghai: lemongrass lager, fries, nachos, and quesadillas. Not very Chinese, but delicious.
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