DUMPLING DAY!

We were woken up by the conductor on the train and prepared to debark around 10 am in Xi’an. We went straight to the Bell Tower hostel in the center of town by bus for 1 yuan. Xi’an still has an old city wall around it which was much bigger than I would have imagined. The hostel was really nice and had a good bar and gathering area. We had an 8 person room, and there were 3 others in there already when we got there. It seemed like they never left the room. They had hard seats on the train so they didn’t sleep the night before. I’m glad we had the sleeper!

We all showered and gave the hostel a load of laundry. We had a western breakfast at the hostel of omelets and toast, and then headed out.

It rained pretty hard and consistently throughout the whole day. We took 2 city buses to get out to see the Terra Cotta warriors. The ride took about an hour and the bus was very leaky! About half of the seats were wet.

We got tickets and climbed up a hill to get to the museum. I thought the museum was poorly done; one of the exhibits was about 2 chariots that had been restored, and another was about how the museum was built. They had English signs, but they were poorly translated and did not give me the information that I wanted. I wound up with more questions than answers!

There were three exhibit halls. The first was the largest and had maybe 1,000 restored warriors, mostly bunched up towards the front. This was the most impressive part. The rest of the all just looked like an archaeological dig. I think I expected something more like the Mayan ruins in Mexico. The other 2 halls hardly had anything in them, although signs stated that there were hundreds of warriors in there. The big question that went unanswered was where are all of these warriors now??

You could buy replicas – one life sized one was listed at 58000 Yuan. Of course, this can be bargained, like everything else, but the prices were ridiculous!

We looked at the shops but all seemed overpriced. As we walked down we were funneled through shops that were new and looked like the new Maple Grove shopping mall area. We bought little warriors to give as gifts, and Peter helped us bargain for what we needed. It was overwhelming in that we had no idea what price things were worth, and we had a difficult time communicating. Again, thanks to Peter for his bargaining skills!

We returned to the bus and to the center of Xi’an. We had dinner at a fancy hotel restaurant that is famous for its dumplings. We had a fixed price meal. They brought us something like 8 plates of dumplings, each with one dumpling for each of us. The dumplings were all different shapes and had different fillings. The chicken ones were molded like chickens, and the same with the duck, walnut, fish etc. It was delicious! The tea was also very good and prepared traditionally.

After dinner we walked around the Islamic district, mainly the street market area. It seemed quite touristy but we were able to buy some gifts. Clark bargained for 2 paintbrushes for his mom. We both bargained for 2 scroll paintings. We learned 2 tricks. One is to start walking away, and they often will call you back and offer you a lower price. The second is to make a joke. This is difficult with the language barrier, but we were able to do so on occasion. In the art shop, they used a calculator to show the price, and this one said the numbers out loud. I tried to say the numbers of the price we wanted, and the owners thought it was so funny, they just gave us that price.

We walked back toward the hostel through a back alleyway, next to the Mosque. Then we hit up McDonald’s to treat Peter to some ice cream, and then back to the hostel, where our roommates were already back in bed. Clark and I had a beer at the bar there, and Peter and Kevin headed out to a couple of clubs nearby.