Post #28 – November 8, 2012 – Xi’an, China

What we did: Train Station and Shaanxi History Museum

Budget: 450 Yuan/$75; Spent: 320 Yuan/$53.33

Patty here. Happy to say it was a good first day in Xi’an. It’s a beautiful modern city and if we didn’t know any better we could very well be in Japan. The city is pretty clean considering its enormous size and population of 4.5 Million. Sorry Sil, I think in an e-mail I stated the population was over 12M, my bad.

We had no idea what to expect going into today, and after our experience in Pingyao let’s just say our expectations were not high. But, on that note, our trip to Pingyao was actually extremely fortunate. Not sure if Canada heard the news but precisely the day following our departure from Beijing, a freak snow storm hit the city, causing flight cancellations/delays and very sadly even killed two Japanese tourists on their visit to the Great Wall, which we had only visited days earlier. The crazier part is that we had originally planned on leaving Beijing the day of the snow storm. Had it not been for Dale’s advice to leave earlier, we would have been stuck in Beijing for who knows how long. Anyhow, sometimes when you think things in life are working against you, they’re actually working in your favour. We’re lucky people. Breaks my heart to think of those Japanese tourists. No doubt they were very much just like us, excited to visit one of the wonders of the world, but simply picked the wrong day. Life can be cruel sometimes.

On another somber note, the city of Xi’an was very near the epicentre of where THE deadliest earthquake in history took place back in 1556 and killed an estimated 830,000 people. This quickly prompted me to look into what to do in the event of an earthquake!! Three steps are as follows: 1) Drop, cover, hold on. Basically get to your hands and knees and as quickly as possible and if near a table get underneath and hold onto it. If in bed, don’t move from there. If outside stay there. It turns out most deaths and injuries are a result of trying to escape from a place and subsequently getting hit by glass or other falling/broken objects. Also it’s been confirmed that it is most often NOT wise to stand underneath a doorway like most people believe. In modern homes, doorways are no stronger than the rest of the building. They also cannot protect you from falling or flying objects. Anyways, never hurts to be prepared.

Now on a brighter note and back to our day today, we woke up around 10am and had a really nice breakfast at our hostel. What a bargain this place is. It’s 40Y per bed/night! That’s less than $13 a night for accommodations! And the accommodations themselves are unbelievable and quite luxurious when you compare them to the sewer we were staying in just a day ago! Sorry, that’s harsh… but not too far off in our books. Anyways, this place is outstanding. And such a breath of fresh air for us. The restaurant here is also awesome. We will likely spend most of our daily budget on the food here. They have western food like burgers, salads, and sandwiches! Not to mention cheesecake, eggs, toast, pancakes, fresh fruit. It’s a beautiful thing. This morning I ordered porridge with bananas which reminded me a lot of the daily oatmeal and banana breakfast I would have everyday at The North West Company, which I always thoroughly enjoyed. And Jeff ordered the English breakfast which was two sunny-side-up eggs, toast, an amazing grilled tomato with parmesan cheese and grilled mushrooms on the side and it also had some fatty but edible bacon on the side. To drink I had an espresso which reminded me of my nonno, and Jeff had an Americano. It was a great way to start the day.

Jeff went to the front desk to get directions to our stops for the day and out and off we went. Our first stop was the Train Station to buy our sleeper train tickets from Kunming to Guilin. Our very helpful hostel staff wrote out the instructions for the ticket person at the Train Station and with some help from some really nice locals we got to the ticket office and walked away with the tickets in no time. After this, we treated ourselves to some coffees from the McDonalds across the street. The golden arches literally call to us wherever we go and without exaggerating, are extremely comforting to see. And their menus are always interesting depending on where you go. They’re fishier in Japan and very chicken oriented here in Northern China.

After our coffees we ventured over to the Shaanxi History Museum. Our book indicated it is often touted as being one of China’s best museums. The best part is that it is free!! It was a very interesting visit. Both of us were in awe of how much history China has! They had relics that dated back over 10 thousand years ago. They had replica skulls of some of our very early human ancestors that dated back more than 1 million years ago if you can believe it. The original artifacts were found in China which kind of gives you an idea of how much history we’re talking about here. There were also plenty of original clay and metal tools that were thousands of years old. Later in the tour we saw several of the original Terracotta Warriors. They each have their own unique faces, body builds, and outfits. And, some are in really interesting positions, as if they were sketched from real warriors who had posed for an artist who made a sketch for a sculptor who then created the statues. Not sure, if that’s what happened but that’s what it looks like.

The plan tomorrow is to head to the Terracotta Warriors site first thing after breakfast. We’re pretty excited about it.

After the museum we were both starving. Our stomachs have been kinda upset with us since arriving in China and understandably so. We often don’t know what the hell we’re eating and I think sometimes it’s better that we don’t know. But so far so good, neither of us have gotten sick. After the museum we came across a street vendor frying baby potatoes with green onions in 6 different spices which I think were cumin, cayenne, salt, pepper, and there were two more, one was green maybe parsley? Anways here’s a pic:

This was the best 5 Yuan we have spent so far. They were sooooo good!

After our snack we found a Wal-mart where we bought 6 bananas, 2 oranges, q-tips, Kleenex, handwipes, 8 Snickers bars, a lufa sponge, a bottle of grape Fanta, coconut chocolates, a 100g bag of peanuts, raisin buns, and dried kiwi. All this for under $12!! We walked away feeling like we stole something. It was a good cheap day. This food will help us out when we actually have to spend money here on excursions. We’ll opt for our own food for breakfasts and snacks and save this way.

We decided to walk back to our hostel from there which was only a couple blocks away. We got a nice picture of the Bell Tower lit up at night in Xi’an. 

So far we really really like this city. We’re looking forward to spending another 3 days here J

Good night.

Patty