Xi'An

Generally speaking, there was two places in China what I wanted to see before leaving China, first was Shanghai and second Xi’an – Now I’ve seen both! Xi’an is also a bit more than 1000 kilometres from Beijing, so it’s like slightly under two hour flight (yeah, this time I was flying) and could be considered quite close in China context. There was a small misunderstanding when looking accommodation as I just walked into the place which was given me my google maps, but there was no reservation on my name. Usually I always often print booking confirmation with me, but this time I didn't have that so after solving out things a bit I found out that my place was actually on the same street just around on kilometre down the road. Lessons learned: Children, never trust too much on google maps.

Xi’an used to be a very prosperous city because it was the place where the silk-road started. Most likely because of that, the city also needed to have strong defences and on these days Xi’an’s city wall is the oldest and the best preserved city wall in China. The wall is shaped on square surrounding the old city, 12 meters high, 15-18 meters wide and in total 14 kilometres long. Someone have had a great idea to put bike rental places on the wall, as it works as a highway it’s cool to rent a bicycle and drive around the whole city wall loop. Although I have to admit that driving on the wall was a quite bumpy ride, but still a great way to have an overlook of the city. It also gave a nice contrast between old and new because inside city walls the houses were bit older and not that high, but outside city walls there could be seen skyscrapers and other modern buildings.

In physical central of the old city was marked by a bell tower and a drum tower next to that. Mission of those towers were to alarm population of incoming attacks etc. but also just to notify a daily rhythm for people. Around these towers were Muslim quarters, the food street – much bigger and better than the one here in Beijing. First of all it was bigger and the atmosphere, air was smoky and full of aromas because of grilled meat spits, people were shouting and queuing to get to taste best tastes. I had a bit sweetened sticky rice, lamb spit, sesame bread, and “Chinese hamburger” also translated as clip bun. Its like a pita bread filled up with catted meat that is so soft that's its even hard to imagine, some sauce and meat stock. Simple and delicious.

Those were actually the main sights in Xi’an city itself, but the main point is located about an hour outside the city: Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and the Terracotta army. Terracotta warriors were discovered on 1974 accidently by a local farmer when he was digging a water well, now he is famous from that and if you buy a book of the Terracotta warriors, he will sign his name on that book. I’ve seen some pictures from the pits before and heard few stories but still it was something unbelievable!

After stepping into the first pit, a view of 230 meters long and 62 meters wide opens containing the main army of more than 6 000 figures, all real man sized. And it is true that those statues are not just copies made from a one model, they truly have recognizably different facial expressions and clothing related to their military ranking (archer, general etc…). Two others pit had some horse men with chariots, commander’s point – the assumed centre of the army tombs. Bit more than kilometre way from these warrior tombs, is the actually Emperors tomb located but that still remains unopened. Even that the area has been excavated for past four decades we can still only make guess what kind of treasures will be found there in the future.