Violent storm...
After our stay in Beijing we took again the fast speed train, this time to Xi’an. The trip took round about 6 hours. During our journey we saw from the train so many landscapes which was flooded by rain or rivers. We heard in the news that many places in China are completed under water, it raining very heavy the last days without breaks. We had somehow luck that the places we went was not affected and that our train track is above the ground, they build the fast train track on stilt.
When we arrived in Xi’an the weather was nice, the sun was shining and the sky blue, temperature around 30°C. After we checked in at our hostel we directly went to the city and had a walk at the pedestrian zone and the bazar. The area is at the Muslim quarter, here in Xi’an lots of people are Muslim. The cuisine from this area is totally different to those from Beijing or Shanghai, it´s more like in the Orient, lots of lamb meat, flat bread, walnut, etc. Around late afternoon we walked on top of the historic city wall. The wall is in a good condition and really huge, you can hire a bicycle and ride around the whole wall, the distance is round about 13km long. We only went there for a short walk, it was too hot for us to rent a bike and the queue was also too long for us.
The next day we booked a guided tour for the first time to see the Terracotta army and in the evening a traditional dance performance at the opera. Because we only stayed for 2 nights in Xi’an we didn´t really have the time to explore everything on our own, that’s why we took a guided tour. The place of the Terracotta army is about 1h car drive from the city centre. When we arrived there, we were leaded through 3 halls where you can see the Terracotta army. They found about 8000 soldiers, each of them have individual faces. They say that the faces are made from those person who once built them. They also say that all the people who once created these figures we all killed to keep secret about these figures and the location, ordered by the emperor. Because the creator knew about it, they scratched their name into the figures. So if people one day would find the figures, they should remember about those creators who were killed…really weird. The figures were made very detailed, unbelievable about the knowledge which the people already had, more than 2000 years ago. It will probably take further 40 years until the archaeologist reconstruct all of the figures. We found the tour very interesting, it was really impressive to see the figures.
In the evening our hostel brought us to the Shaanxi Grand Opera House. There we had a Dim Sum dinner, the dinner tables are located directly in front of the stage. After the dinner the show started directly at 8 pm. The music was played live with traditional Chinese instruments. It was a very colourful show, absolutely worth to see, stage design and music was very interesting.
On the following day we already continued our journey, this time we flew to Chengdu, Sichuan district. There we would like to visit the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and relax a while at the mountain area around Emei Shan and go for hiking.