This year, I didn’t think traveling would be a possibility at all because of Covid-19. However, people have been traveling safely and successfully through China, and the few breakouts that have happened have been far away from our destinations. I realize that I am extremely privileged to live here and do what I love, but I think it’s also important to mention that we and other travelers take the precautions recommended and indeed often required — wearing a mask in airports and all transport, at major tourist destinations (particularly those indoors) and at crowded places, registering ourselves with the local epidemic prevention contact tracing, and taking the extra time to wash our hands thoroughly. That said, traveling within China has been a particular treat after having lived here and studied Chinese so hard for 2 years. Not only are we easily able to navigate cities with public transportation and customs, but we can also learn or communicate things that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to.
For this trip, we chose to go see Chengdu, the former capital of China and a historic area in Sichuan (known in the West as Szechuan) Province. But we figured, while we’re in the area, we might as well check out the Terracotta Warriors a few hours north in Xi’An. We spent 3 days in Xi’an and fell in love with the food!! I will break up this post into 2: one with activities and one with food, and try to keep it short so the main focus can be the pictures.
Day 1: Beilin Museum, Xi’an wall, the Drum Tower
On day 1 we wanted to go to the Xi’An city history museum, but tickets were booked out for our entire stay! If you spend any time in Xi’An, make sure you book the tickets far in advance. Because they’re free, they’re usually booked up. If you have to pay a company a few bucks to do it for you, that’s probably worth it — because apparently this museum is one of the most impressive sights in the city. Instead we followed the recommendation of our hostel tour guide Lucy, who said she really likes the Beilin (碑林) museum, a.k.a. the “Forest of Steles.” Don’t know what a stele is? I didn’t! It’s a slab of stone onto which script is written, as paper is difficult to preserve. There are over 3,000 steles at this museum full of scripts of different kind, hundreds to over 1,000 years old. In one building you could find Chinese poetry, in another the required reading of the intellectuals in Ancient China, in another civic administration documents, and much much more. There was also a section dedicated to Buddhist steles and sculptures, which was really cool. Entrance to the museum was about 65rmb.
After the Beilin museum, we had to go check out the City Wall (城墙). For just 45rmb you can rent a mountain bike for 3 hours and ride around the top. It was HUGE. We didn’t go very fast and stopped for pictures a few times, but it took us about 2 hours to do the whole thing. The pictures speak for themselves. I highly recommend this experience. We topped it off with some mojitos at a cafe at the bottom of the South Gate.
The last part of the day was the Drum tower, (鼓楼) which, with its complement the Bell tower (钟楼) (currently under construction), was very important in Ancient China to mark the passing of time. From the deck of the drum tower, you can get a nice view of Muslim Street, one of the main hotspots (tourist, not Corona) in the city! We ate some food there and went back to the hostel to pass out after a LONG day of sightseeing.
Day 2: Terracotta Army, Muslim Street Food Tour, Wild Goose Pagoda, Defu Bar street
The Terracotta Army (in Chinese, “soldier horse statue” 兵马俑）is one of the manmade wonders of the world and it’s impossible to understand the vastness of it until you go. There are 3 pits that are open and have been excavated of what experts think are probably 20 pits — a 4th is currently being excavated — but that’s only 1% of what’s there. There is also an enormous underground palace that hasn’t been opened partly because permission has not ben given by the government, and partly because it’s full of mercury and archaeologists are trying to figure out how to do it safely. It took 37 years and apparently 700,000 slaves to build this site which houses the mausoleum of the first emperor of China. As the story goes, the emperor also wanted to bury his army with him to take into the afterlife, but needed to pass the army on to his son. So a witch helped him come up with the great idea to just kill slaves and put the ashes of their bodies inside the hollow torsos of each of the warriors. Yeah, it’s pretty f-ed up.
The farmer who was digging a well nearby and stumbled across the remains works in the souvenir shop selling books of pictures of the Terracotta Army and you can get a picture with him. So we did! I told him it’s my mom’s dream to come see this and thanked him? I don’t know why I thanked him. In any case, Lucy told us that when he met Bill Clinton in the ‘90s (pictured behind us), he had practiced for months to ask him in English, “how are you?” but instead ended up asking the president, “who are you?” Bill responded with, “I’m Hillary’s wife.” It’s a good story!
In the afternoon we did our own food tour of Muslim Street (回民街). We… we ate too much. I’ll save food pictures for the food post, but the place was poppin’.
After stuffing ourselves, we rested a bit before heading down to the Wild Goose Pagoda (大雁塔), which is beautiful at night but not very photogenic. We caught a few minutes of the renouned dancing fountain show there, which was awesome. There are also apparently impressive performances you can catch of small groups, but to be honest we forgot about them 😀 Oh well! putting it on the list for our return trip.
On the way home, we stumbled across the Defu bar street, which is a great place to grab a drink with eclectic bars in old buildings. We didn’t spend much time there, though. We were pretty pooped from our day again.
Day 3: Yongxingfang market, Tang Dynasty performance
We thought it would probably be difficult to follow the previous day on account of having seen THE TERRACOTTA ARMY, but it also turned out to be a major treat with delights for the senses. After sleeping in a bit for the first time in days, we headed over to Yongxingfang, a local market near the east gate of the city wall. This market, with facades much different from those at Muslim Street, had a much more distinctly traditional Chinese flavor — both in architecture and in food! We sampled snacks paroused souvenirs, taking in the setup. We also drank 4 ceramic bowls of what we thought was sweet cold tea (and turned out to be alcohol) and smashed them onto a pile of other ceramic bowls. Very cathartic.
After eating more food than I ever thought I could fit into my stomach, we ate more and then had some ice cream. Then we digested in the hostel for a while before going out to eat a dumpling banquet. I’m not joking.
The dumpling banquet happened to be at a theater in which we were to watch a “Tang Dynasty Performance.” I had zero expectations for the performance or the dumpling banquet, and was pleasantly surprise by the banquet but totally blown away by the show. The show was about the Empress of the Tang Dynasty, who brought peace and prosperity to the land and was one of the only empresses in Chinese history. It’s a long story and I didn’t learn much because it was almost all dancing and I had done absolutely zero research beforehand. My mouth was also just embarrassingly agape the entire time. I mean I grew up with theater, and this was Broadway quality stuff in terms of music, backdrop, dancing, costumes, and a master pan-flute player.
A huge thanks to the Han Tang Inn, the hostel that is usually poppin’ at this time of year with international tourists but has cut their staff from 13 to 3 during the tourism season of 2020. They organized the tourist events for us (the Terracotta Army with our awesome tour guide Lucy, and the banquet and Tang Dynasty show). Our time in Xi’an was so special because of them.
So now as I write this, I am on a train from the Chengu airport to LeShan, a little tourist spot in eastern Sichuan (also spelled Szechuan). On the itinerary for the next few days is more food, hopefully some hiking (weather permitting), and a Giant Buddha before we head over to see the pandas in Chengdu.