Xi'an

The sun does shine in central China. It shines in your eyes at 7:30am when you’re trying to grab an extra hour of sleep on a train to Xi’an. At least it’s a nice day.

Although it isn’t the capital now, Xi’an was the capital of China for about 1200 years, for many different dynasties. As such, Xi’an has a little bit of history attached to it. It also has the world’s only complete city wall. Last repaired during the Ming dynasty (most recent, 1800s), the modern wall was used militarily once, in 1926 when a warlord besieged the city for 8 months. No really, it happened. A warlord besieged a city in the 20th century. The city has outgrown the wall since then, but most of the notable sites are still inside the compact 2x4 kilometer protected area. Between the drum tower, bell tower, and city wall, the whole place has a really imperial feel to it. You drive through the gate under the wall and can’t help but think about people doing the same thing 1000 years ago. You can tell this place has always been sort of in the center of things.

The three major stops today were all inside the wall. First, the Forest of Steles museum, then the Bell Tower, and then a mosque dressed up in traditional Chinese architecture. We walked from one to the next instead of being carted by bus, since they were all near to each other. Although I find myself less than excited to be back in a city, Xi’an is a pretty nice place to walk around.

In the Muslim corridor, there’s a night market. It’s not quite as renao as Urumqi’s, but it’s still a night market. The soup dumplings we got were somewhat disappointing, though.

The hotel here has HBO. Yessssss.