Back to Xian, and away

[I am still having trouble to get the pictures to post, I will work on that later]

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Debra and I, having obtained tickets, packed our bags and, with out great fanfare, departed for the train station. The tickets that we had were, again, soft seat. It seems that while Debra generally travels soft seat between Ankang and Xian she had never located the soft seat waiting room in Ankang. I think that I have just learned what to look for, as I walked straight to it.

It was rather funny, the baggage x-ray machine was simply too small to facilitate the packs that we had so the operator did not look at us and we did not look at him as we ignored his machine. As it was, we were in a bit of a hurry as our train was arriving on the platform when we entered the waiting lounge.

The security procedures are very funny; they have these high tech machines, but no clear procedures. I am sure that the operators are will trained, it is not a matter of not knowing the equipment; it is a matter of not knowing security principles. Bags, such as suitcases and packages are to be placed on the scanner. However, bags containing only food are not to be scanned because it just further crowds the, already crowded, conveyor through the machine. Most shockingly, hand bags, or in my case a camera bag, are also not scanned. This is for different security reasons; they do not want a problem with hand and camera bags being stolen off the conveyor. The final result is that with all of this expensive equipment, a large amount of stuff is not checked at all.

All this being said, the return trip to Xian and the Bell Tower Hostel was rather uneventful. The Bell Tower is a rather clean and well run hostel. It does get a bit loud; but nothing that makes sleep impossible. The only other issue is that it is kept a bit warm. However, compared to the number of places that have no heating at all, this is not a serious issue. The bathrooms are on the same floor as, and near, the rooms and the showers are hot with separate shower rooms for men and women.

The next day Debra was not up yet so I took the bus to the train station to meet Michelle. It took me a while to find the correct bus as I was still having trouble reading train station, which is, "火车站."(rather obviously, My space does not support Chinese characters but blogger does) I then ended up waiting a while as Michelle's train was late. However, by the time she arrived I looked pretty competent navigating the streets and buses of Xian.

We then returned to the hostel, checked her in, and found that Debra had already left. At that point Michelle and I went to the Drum and Bell towers. These are two different land mark towers in Xian that, not surprisingly, are near the Bell Tower Hostel. AT the Drum tower, which we went to second, Debra met up with us. She had no interest in seeing the towers as she had already seen them several times; so, she waited outside of the Drum Tower. From there we went to the Fruit Bazaar near the Moslem Quarter and continued on to some of the nearby shops where both Debra and Michelle purchased simple head shawls (when in Rome…).

From there we took a bus to the Shaanxi History Museum. This Museum has a great display of many of the artifacts from the early digs and the Terra Cotta Army. I was surprised to see a chrome plated sword from the Qin Dinasty. There were a number of arrowheads and a lock work from a crossbow along with several of the support beams from the Tomb and some of the fittings that were used to tie the beams together. If a person goes to see the Terra Cotta army they really should see this museum in order to tie all the details together.

At this point we tried to go to the Foreign Book Store but found that it was closed, we were too late in the evening. So, we went to dinner. About this time Debra announced that she intended to travel in a different direction. She wanted to go north and follow the Silk Road. While I am interested in traveling that route, I am not interested in doing it in the winter.

Michelle and I then went to the train station and purchased tickets to ChengDu together, it is kind of funny, she can speak the Chinese better; however, I can write it better. Together we got the exact tickets we wanted.

The next morning Michelle and I got up early and caught our transport to the Terra Cotta Army site. On the way there we spoke to some Mid-westerners who were on their way to a nearby hot spring. There was a group of six of them, which upon retirement, have come to China together to teach and see China.

Because we had made an effort to get there early, and because this is the off season, the place was almost empty. As often happens at Chinese attractions, there are so many vendor shops set up outside that the attraction itself is hard to find. However, we met a woman who worked that the Museum and she showed us the way to the main gate. I can say that is getting worse. At nearly all of these attractions, and this one was no exception, there is a massive effort underway to increase the number of vendor shops. When they are done at the Terra Cotta Army a visitor will have to endure several blocks of shops between the parking area and the gates to the Park. Even within the park there are vendors running around trying to sell the same items that can be found in Xian for less.

At least the there are no vendors in the halls. The dig is completely covered, in order to protect it. It combined with the, afore mentioned, museum are simply a must see. It is also worth going to the round theater to see the documentary on the making, and eventual looting, of the Terra Cotta Army.

From there we braved the gauntlet of vendors and went back to the buses. The people on the bus made a quick attempt to cheat us by demanding about five times to take us back to Xian as they charged to take us out. At that point Michelle told them to stop the bus because we were on the wrong one (we were on the right bus). They quickly remembered the correct price.

After doing this we went back to the foreign book store, which was now open, and looked at some Chinese study books. When we went downstairs to the popular book section we ran into Debra and all went for lunch. After lunch Michelle and I went to the Beilin Museum. This is a library that boasts the heaviest average weight of all the libraries in the world. The books are stone tablets, and there are a lot of them. It was very interesting and we stayed there until they closed and politely chased us out.

From there we returned to the hostel and began working on finding a place in ChengDu. I used the rather simple method of writing to several hostels and going with the first one that responded. Michelle was pleased that the ones I picked offered pick-up at the train stations. The first response I got was from Sim's Guesthouse on the next day.

On the next day we also walked the city wall of Xian. It was a rather long walk and I was having trouble with my boot. The boot problem became such an issue that the next day I purchased new boots and left the boots that I had been wearing, that were developing a non-repairable hole, behind. The walk around the city wall is along the top of the wall, because it was off season there were not many people on the wall. It is about a 17Km walk that provides an overlook of many parts of the central city (the wall only encircles the core of the city, it does not, in any way circle the new city) that a person would not otherwise see. There were both temples and churches that I did not even know existed before this walk. The wall was built between 600-1300 CE and is intact and very well preserved, even if it has been rebuilt in spots.

This walk was followed by a nap and then Michelle and I went for a walk to some other bookstores that evening. At this point we were looking for some travel guides of the, "Lonely Planet," or, "Rough Guide," series. The other reason for the walk was just to insure that we did not get sore from the long walk earlier in the day.

The next day was our last day in Xian. We went to the Flying Goose Pagoda. This is a large Pagoda and temple within Xian. We were both very impressed by the large carved stone and wood relief's on the walls ( I am often impressed by the work and planning that goes into large 3d stone wall relief carvings[Yes, I realize that all carvings are, by definition, 3d. What I mean is the relief's that have the backs of the items in the relief carved out and things behind items in the foreground, all in one large relief]). One of the monks (who, in general, was busy talking on his cell phone) showed us some of the best places to get pictures. In general, it was a great place to visit. This site helped make this one of the best days of the trip, the only bad part is that this is the last time I saw Debra on the trip. She did not go into the temple with us but left for her own trip instead.

From here Michelle and I returned to the Moslem quarter. We both purchased North-Face jackets while we were here (about $22 USD each). This allowed us to mail some of our winter clothing back to our office. The post office was kind of funny. There is no need to package the items before arriving because they insist on doing their own packing in their own boxes. So, I got to the packing counter and the guy saw me and pulled a whit box out (at this point I did not know that certain colors of boxes mean certain things) and packs my stuff that I am returning: books, clothing, and the broken iPod. I then get to the shipping counter and discover that white boxes are international. It had not occurred to anyone that I would be shipping anything internally. So, I had to go back to the packing counter and get it all taken out of the white box and put into a brown box.

In all, the China Post experience was very useful. At this point I have a good idea of what is involved in shipping things back to the states.

From here we returned to the hostel. While we had already checked out, they were still holding our bags. We both took a quick shower and got to the process of medicating ourselves for a long and boring train ride. I was sitting in the lounge chatting wit a young woman named Nina who I forgot to photograph ad, I expect, I will never see again, from Germany, when it was time to stagger to the train station. When we got to the train station I used my ignorant foreigner act to get into the VIP waiting room (that we were not supposed to use at this station because we were traveling hard [second class] sleeper). After a couple of hours of sitting and reading, it was time to step on to the train to the next major city of our journey.