Xi'an Day 2

Guest Blogger: Fat BF

Hi all, welcome to the 2^nd day of my Xi’an tour. After waking up, we decide to walk to the lane behind our hotel.

We have gotten Rou Mo (肉馍) and walnut drink for our breakfast. Wooh.. Good choice as our body warm up rather quickly after consuming our breakfast.

After studying Xi'an train network in the hotel, we decide to take the train to 五路口站, walk northwards to reach the train station. It’s a rather short walk of approximately 15 mins when we reach. Oh yes, along the way, there will be a lot of people asking if you’re interested to visit the Qin emperor tomb. Just ignore them and look for bus 306 (游5). You will be brought to the tomb directly. I will blog more on this at the next post.

 Upon reaching Xi’an train station, we tried to purchase the train ticket to mount Hua (华山).
Mount Hua is a sacred mount with many legend. Some of them are integrated to the Chinese belief. For me, I view it as a place to revisit some of the scenery written in the Chinese martial art novel by Louis Chia (金庸).

As we approach the counter, to my horror…I left my passport in the hotel. Shucks… no chance of getting the ticket. Never the less, both of us just decide to walk around the area. When walking along the city wall, we realise that it’s actually open for tourist and the entrance is pretty near the train station.

Fat bf @ City Wall

Ticket office

Ticket ( RMB54 each

Battlement Flag which signifies the North

XuanWu = Chinese mystical creature  

During the trip, we learn several facts about the city wall.

1  1)  It was built in the Ming dynasty and not the tang dynasty.

2  2)  It’s 13km+ in total length

3  3)    Last repair was done in the Qing dynasty. 

Directions

Shhhh

If you appreciate military history, you will appreciate this trip. During the trip, we went into the arrow tower and were shown around by the keeper. Pretty thick local slang so don’t really know what he was saying but from what we understand, it seems like the arrow tower was used as a storage to store some of the artefacts before it was moved to the museum.

After this, we decide to go for our lunch and decide to have the local Liang Pi (凉皮)-literally "cold skin") is a noodle-like Chinese dish made from wheat or rice flour-Origin from China Shannxi Province.

My advice.. don’t try this if you can’t take spicy food and yes, they do use a lot of chill oil for this dish.

After lunch, we decide to rest a bit in the hotel before proceeding to 小雁塔. Again, our choice of transport is the local train. We got off at 南梢门 and make our way to Small Wild Goose Pagoda (小雁塔). Think you will be pleasantly surprised to know that they do offer free ticket for visitor when you present your passport. Small Wild Goose Pagoda was a major landmark for Chinese Buddhism as a large number of Buddhism scripture were translated in this temple. 

Small Wild Goose Pagoda (小雁塔) 
 View from the top, next to Xi'an museum.

On the way up to the top

 After the tower, we went to the museum next to it and it’s the 1^st time I drink wine in the museum as I’m having faint spell inside.. haha..                

Fooling around injecting some fun in this trip=P

Xian museum   -rhino by some artist. Looks cute huh??

Imperial Tang City layout

From the museum, it’s pretty interesting to know that several Japanese city follow tang method of city design with their city design like a chess board. Some of the cities includes, Heijokyo(today's Nara) and later Heian-kyo or Kyoto, modelled after Chang'an in a more modest scale yet was never fortified.[9] The modern Kyoto still retains some characteristics of Sui-Tang Chang'an. Similarly, the Korean Silla dynasty modelled their capital of Gyeongju after the Chinese capital. Sanggyeong, one of the five capitals of the state of Balhae, was also laid out like Chang'an (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang'an)

Of course, after a long day of walking, we decide to reward ourself with a good dinner.. along the way back, we notice the peking duck restaurant.

Review: there are some difference between the northern and southern Chinese diet. For example, southern Chinese would expect some rice to go along their dinner but not the northern Chinese. Thus, because of this, some message are being lost in the translation

•   Order soup – Since it’s such a cold evening, we decide to warm ourself by ordering soup.. when it arrives, we were stun as it’s such a large bowl.
• Peking duck – after extracting all the meat, they will ask if you would like to make a soup out of the remaining. Since we have ordered soup before hand, we decide not to. Thus, after some recommendation from the waitress, we decide to have duck frame stir fried with cumin. A must try when your in xi’an.

Throughout our trip, most of the food will include cumin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumin) as part of the spice. Some how, it will add an exotic taste to the food especially to meat. As for me, I nick name it as the MAGIC POWDER as it has the magical property of transforming the usual cut into something magical... haha… =D

Till Next Time for the rest of Xi'an travelogy =D

Do check out the Day 1 Xi'an here =D