The weekend trip to Xi’an was quite an adventure. Here’s an overview of what we (Aa, Ed, Xy, S & myself) did… Friday night – After last-minute packing and a cold shower (water still not hot by 4pm…), we made our way through peak hour traffic arriving at Beijing West station just in time to catch the 5:30 train. There were hundreds of people just sitting on the ground (or on their luggage) at the station, and yet the platforms were deserted. Strange…
We all brought instant cup noodles to have for dinner. After several hours of small talk, S decided to buy a pack of playing cards and so we played card games until lights-out. I slept on the middle bunk. The beds were about half a metre wide, and very close together (vertically); with the exception of the bottom bunk, there was not enough space for anyone taller than a small child to sit up. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, but I didn’t sleep well. I woke up each time the train jolted, stopping to let some other train to pass us by.
As we crossed over the Shaanxi Province border, I received a strange SMS. “Welcome to Shaanxi, the origin of Chinese civilization!”…and then provided the mobile provider’s hotline for tourist information, and one for customer service. Everyone got the same message. Pretty advanced, eh.
After about 14 hours, we finally arrived in Xi’an. We got off the train and I got my camera ready to snap a photo of the train at Xi’an station. My camera made an odd clicking sound and then the display blacked out, showing only 3 small characters in the bottom left hand corner: E18. I tried switching it on and off a couple of times, took out the battery, the memory card…but nothing worked. When the power was switched off, the lens not only made a strange clicking sound but stubbornly refused to retract. Grrr…
Walking out of the station was kind of like walking out of customs and into the arrivals hall of an airport. We scanned the crowd for the person holding up the sign with S’s name on it – our tour guide. We were first taken to the hotel to pick up 2 other travellers and to drop off our luggage then headed east to Huaqing Hotspring. It was quite pretty and kinda looked like a set from a movie, but actually has quite a long history.
Next, we stopped by Qinling Underground Palace for a quick tour. The reproduction of Emperor Qi’s tomb was rather impressive (though the mangled dead bodies - fake, of course - kinda freaked me out). After lunch, we visited the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum which resembled a considerably large garden with exhibits of ancient artifacts scattered throughout.
The final stop for the day, and the place I found most interesting, was the Museum of Terracotta Warriors. Apparently, there has only ever been one person who has successfully (though illegally) climbed over the shoulder-high fence and into the excavation pit without being spotted. It was an overseas student who was said to love the terracotta warriors so much that he made himself a costume, dressed himself up and climbed into the pit pretending to be one of them. Even the museum staff couldn’t pick him out. Hehe! :D
For dinner, we were on our own. We went out to the city centre to one of the most famous dumplings restaurant in town: De Fa Chang. I only tried their steamed vegetable-filled buns, but the others commented that the dumplings didn’t taste much better than the ones at the school cafeteria.
Day 2 (Sunday) – We were originally told by our tour guide to go for breakfast at 7:30am. Just after 7am, the tour guide called and told us that we would be picked up earlier that said by another tour guide who showed up like 20 minutes after the call. And so we rushed through breakfast (congee, steamed buns and small cold dishes) and followed tour guide #2 to the bus. Just outside the city wall, the bus stopped and we were told to get out and change buses. What the…?!
After a 2-hour nap (^^;), we arrived in the vicinity of Huashan. However, where we first stopped was some run down building (supposedly a pharmacy) in which we were subjected to a lecture by a doctor selling Chinese health products made from plants found only on Mt. Huashan. Needless to say, no one bought any. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant (we got to order our own food this time) before actually heading up the mountain.
We took the cable car up about halfway and hiked to the north peak (1614m). And maybe two-thirds up the east peak (2038m). The hike itself was not tough – just thousands and thousands of steps. Though there were one or two sections where the steps were almost vertical. We held on to the heavy iron chains on both sides and climbed up the rockface, much like you would climb up a ladder. The weather was more or less perfect: sunshine, little wind. It was cold at first, but I quickly warmed up from the exercise (I’m so unfit!) The higher we climbed, the more snow there was. The view was absolutely amazing. Too bad my stoopid camera was broken. But still, I don’t think my photography skills are good enough to have captured the picturesque landscape on film. Mid-afternoon, we started to make our way slowly down the mountain and back on the bus for Xi’an.
Our hotel was the last stop, so it was almost 8pm by the time we got back. We wandered the streets around the hotel and decided to have dinner at a Moslem restaurant where the owner was very entertaining. Even though we were all tired from the day’s adventure, we wanted to make the most of our time in Xi’an and went for an evening stroll. We stumbled upon Moslem Street and wandered around there for an hour or two. It was almost 10pm when we hit the markets at the end of the street (or perhaps the start of the street?) and most of the stalls were closed. However, we still had enough time to grab some local goodies for the train ride back to BJ the following day. No one was paying much attention to where we were going and we got a little lost on our way back to the hotel, but a kind local pointed us in the right direction.
Day 3 (Monday) – Our tour guide was more than half an hour late. Actually, she didn’t actually turn up. The driver came to pick us up. He tells us that the tour guide was at the train station waiting for arriving 3 travellers. And so the bus driver took us to the station to pick them up. We ended up waiting 1.5 hours. No comment. But I learned one thing: don’t touch a Chinaman’s keys. (Some people use it as an ear-picker thingy.)
Once the others arrived, we went to check out the East City Wall. We were passed on to a City Wall tour guide, who spoke about feng shui, before being given free time to wander around. Second stop: Da Ci’en Temple. We didn’t go inside the 7 storey pagoda as we had little time, but walked around the garden and took a quick look at the exhibit of old Buddhism scripture translations. After a hearty lunch, we were taken to the Bell & Drum Tower area and given free time to explore. To our surprise, we discovered that on the other side of the Drum Tower was the Moslem street we had walked down the night before. We made our way through the narrow back alley, checking out the tiny souvenir shops on either side. We tried a steamed-pudding-on-a-stick with haw-flavoured sauce (tasted better than it looked), a steaming hot persimmon-flavoured glutinous rice cake (oily but yum) and glutinous rice cake with rose-flavoured caramel topping (so-so).
Last stop: train station. We were dropped off at the train station 2 hours before our train was due to depart. And so we decided to walk around the station area and have afternoon tea. We chose a little coffee shop that looked pretty decent from the outside. The interior looked ok as well. S wanted a cold beer – “Sorry, no cold beer, but we can give you ice.” Xy & I ordered bubble milk tea – “Sorry, we don’t have bubble milk tea, but we have milk tea.” Plain milk tea wasn’t actually on the menu at all but we ordered it anyway. Hot milk tea. It was served in a tall glass with a plastic straw. Aa ordered hot Chinese tea – it was also served in a glass, with the loose tea leaves still in it and no strainer!! Ed ordered a mocha – it was served black, but came with a small dish of sugar cubes and a small dish of powdered milk. What the…..?!?! Interesting experience.
As soon as we got on the train, we started played “Big 2.” S & Ed had tried to teach Aa & Xy how to play it on the train ride to Xi’an but they were not too successful, so wanted to give Aa & Xy more practice. After 2 hours, Xy had pretty much gotten the hang of it, but Aa was still confused. Let me just leave it at that. After a light dinner of mantou (steamed buns) left over from lunch, Xy and I got ready for bed. I was on the top bunk opposite Xy this time. It was only 9pm but I was so tired after 3 long days that I fell into a deep sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. When I woke up in the morning, we were in BJ. Looking out the window, to the left was the full moon glowing in the blue-grey sky; to the right were the vast fields beneath a backdrop of warm colours painted by the rising sun. A beautiful start to the day.^^
Then reality hits and we’re crammed in a taxi stuck in peak hour BJ traffic. Luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad, and we arrived at uni with enough time for me to unpack my stuff, have a shower, eat brunch and finish off my homework due that afternoon.
