Walled City of Xi'an

With the help of some new traveling companions, we set off for a five day adventure in the city of Xi'an. We arranged with a company to provide us with an English speaking guide and a driver (as well as hotel and some meals), and found a cheap flight that took us to Shaanxi province for an excursion. We were met at the airport by our guide Jenny and our driver Mr. Lu ( who I would hire if ever needed a get away car for any reason- the man was an unbelievable driver).
Our first stop was at a tomb not far from the airport. I include no photos of this stop simply because I have none that do it justice. There were two large mounds of grass covered dirt in a very large walled area. The emperor was buried in the larger mound, and his empress in the smaller one. The emperor's tomb had been excavated, and in it they found many miniature terra cotta (about 12 inches as far as I could tell) individuals and animals that had been buried at the same time as the emperor. These figurines were a bit odd since they were armless- the theory is that the arms had been made of wood and were and were hooked together so that they could move. The lighting and subject all combined to make this a little eerie. The site made up for this with the coolest "video" that I have ever seen. A larger mirror was positioned at the front of the viewing room and the projector created three dimensional images that appeared to leap off a stage- there was a portly seer sucker suited narrator who moved in and out of historical characters and scenes. Amazing.

After a stop to freshen up at the hotel, we were off to the city wall. Standing at 39 feet (12 meters) high, the Xi'an city walls form a 9 mile (14 km) long square in the middle of the city. Built originally to protect the city, they now serve as a place for the citizens to practice their Tai Chi in the morning, to fly kites, or to walk around. They provide the tourists with a great site to bike around without fear of the local traffic.

So although it was quite late in the afternoon, we persuaded (ok, Jenny did) the bike renting agency to give us bikes for the last half hour of the day at a really discounted rate. Only two of us were interested in riding the ramparts, so we quickly chose our trusty mounts (so fast in fact, that I did not even have time to name the bike) and ride out for 15 minutes, and then ride back for the same amount of time.

The top of the wall is sloped towards the outside and filled with an impressive amount of potholes. There was quite a bit of weaving from side to side in order to avoid a jarring ride. There are small towers that can be found every 120 feet or so. Jenny informed us that these marked that the maximum distance that could be reached by arrows was 60, and so for optimum protection this prescribed the distance for the towers. We took some obligatory photos of the wall and ourselves on the bikes, and then rejoined the rest of our party. The end of the ride also brought the end of the tour for the day.



Wishing we could sit still and process all of the information (as little as it was compared to the coming days) and to try and find some of the lost hours of sleep, we were instead taken to a theater performance and dinner. Dinner was a feast of dumplings- this consisted of bamboo steamers of dumplings of all shapes and colors. Finally, after about an hour and a half of music and acrobatics, we were returned to our hotel for some rest. The performance was certainly good, but some of us were guilty of nodding off a little- it was dark, there was beer at dinner, and jet lag and insufficient sleep were factors.