Xi'An

At 5:00 AM this morning, 17 bleary-eyed travelers were roused by “morning calls” for our flight to Xi’An. We assembled in the lobby around 5:30 AM, where the hotel had prepared an unappetizing breakfast consisting of boiled eggs and a cold pork bun. We were on the bus before 6 AM, arriving at the brand new Nanjing Airport about a half-hour later.

The flight to Xi’An was easy and uneventful. Xi’An is about 1000 miles west of Nanjing at has a population of 6 million. It is one of the oldest cities in China and the home of thousands of archaeological sites, along with important pagodas and other places of great historic significance. It is best known by Westerners as being the site of the Terra Cotta Warriors, which we’ll be visiting tomorrow.

Initial impressions of the City as we were driving in from the airport were not good. The air was brown, the landscape flat and dusty, and the development pretty bleak. The City has a lot of heavy industry (big manufacturing plants with tall smokestacks, riverbanks that have been decimated by sand and gravel mining, and power plants). On the drive in from the airport, we passed through wheat fields and several small villages that had a third-world quality, with a lot of garbage and crumbling buildings. Once we got inside the ancient city walls, things improved quite a bit, and the city had that boomtown look that we’ve seen now in most Chinese cities. Skyscrapers, big construction sites, enormous wide boulevards, tons of traffic, and lots of street activity.

Unfortunately, tonight’s hotel is below par, with smoky rooms that seem more suited for rent-by-the-hour than by the day. On the other hand, there’s an entertaining mix of items in the in-room toiletries bin, including packets of male and female “sexual enhancement” lotions and potions (10 Yuen each).

After checking in (around noon), we headed aacross the street to a restaurant specializing in local Shanxi cuisine. This was very entertaining. We were seated at round tables, each given an empty bowl, and brought a platter of doughy disks that had the consistency of bagels. Watching other tables and patrons, we understood that each diner was supposed to take a dough disk and shred it into miniscule pieces, creating a pile of “bagel crumbs” in their soup bowl. The waitress then collects the bowls and ladles mutton and gravy on the bread, returning it as a stew. Each of us had our bowls rejected several times by the waitress because our bread morsels weren’t small enough. We realized that the bread ripping was a social activity, like playing cards or doing a jigsaw puzzle. You sit around with your friends shredding bread for half an hour and then have a meal.

I was seated with Jim and Barbara Kautz at a table we shared with three business men. They got a big kick out of our food preparation confusion and tried to help us along. No English, of course. Lots of smiles, and they even shared their beer with us.

At 1:30, about half the group went off to see the Big Goose Pagoda (good reviews from those who went). The rest of us used the time to explore the City on our own. It was 96 degrees with hazy sunshine, so the underground pedestrian malls came in handy.

I set out for the Muslim Quarter, an ancient part of the City close to the hotel. I wandered down narrow streets lined with tiny shops and street carts, passing residents with skullcaps and chadors. Eventually I came to the Great Mosque, which I think may be the largest mosque in China. I paid the admission and spent about 15 minutes inside. After I exited, I continued toward the Bell and Drum Towers (two large pagodas in the city center). The character of the neighborhood changed immediately, with scads of French and German tourists and a “souvenir bazaar” ambience. I did a quick tour of the Drum Tower and then headed toward the main shopping district.

The amazing thing is that just one block away from the labyrinth of ancient alleys and pushcarts there are gigantic department stores, with perfume counters for miles, flat screen TVs, Nike sneakers, and high-end clothing. The poor Bell Tower—the city’s most famous landmark—sits in the middle of an enormous roundabout and the only way to get to it is through an underground shopping mall. I walked several blocks through the shopping district, passing Emporio Armani, Dior, Calvin Klein, and three Starbucks coffees, and then did an about face and returned to the hotel.

At 4:45, we were ushered into minivans and taken to a dinner theater to see the Tang Dynasty Dumpling Dinner Show. This is a Disney-style Chinese variety show showcasing traditional Tang costumes, dancing, and singing. It was a little hokey, but entertaining. The sets were spectacular. Following the show, we were led into an adjoining dining room where we sampled 20 different varieties of Chinese dumplings. It was a very filling meal, and the food was excellent.

We returned to the hotel at 7:30 and had a short 20 minute break before our next event—a tea ceremony with a “local expert” in tourism and urban design. The expert turned out to be an Australian travel agent living in Xi’An, but she was very knowledgeable and a pleasure to talk with. She told us a bit about how the City is developing, how the tourism industry is influencing its growth, and how tourism among Chinese residents has exploded as the country has prospered. One of the intriguing things was her description of the government’s desire to tear down the Muslim Quarter and replace it with modern superblock development. It seems they are only just now realizing that people go there for the historic, ethnic character. It was a great conversation, set in a spectacular a 400-year old restored Ming Dynasty estate in the Moslem Quarter. And the tea wasn’t bad either.

It is 10:30 and I’ve just returned from that event. Right now, the streets are even more packed with people (mostly Chinese tourists) and street vendors then they were at sunset. It is still very hot outside.

This is going to be my last entry until Tuesday. Tomorrow night, we are checking out at 7:45 AM, driving an hour to see the Warriors (Terra Cotta, not Golden State), driving back to town to rent bicycles for a ride on the restored City wall, doing more walking tours, and then boarding a train for Beijing at 6:30 PM! When we arrive in Beijing on Tuesday morning, we immediately start our next event.

I am not particularly looking forward to a 13-hour overnighter on a Chinese train, especially after a full day of hiking and biking in 100 degree heat. But hey, I’m sure I’ll have some good stories to tell!