Xi'an - the first capital of China
It was drizzling when we arrived in Xī’ān, and we were sad to see that after heading more than 900km inland from Běijīng the smog was still very bad.
After getting to our hostel we had some basic logistical things to organise: our next set of train tickets; transport & guide for the Terracotta Army; and some foreign exchange at the Bank of China. Our guide books mention that the bank has a reputation for being slow, and Peter reinforced this by waiting for about 40 minutes. In fact the bank was only partly to blame, with a single belligerent Western customer holding up the queue for over half an hour. The only upside is that he wasn’t Australian.
Xī’ān is one of the few cities that still has an old city wall – in this case the wall is a rectangle that totals 14km in length. The centre area is an excellent scale for walking around and so we spent most of the afternoon looking around some of the nearby streets. Our hostel was near the South gate of the wall, and it took about 15 minutes to walk to the famous Bell Tower towards the middle of town.
We enjoyed exploring the Bell Tower and then headed over to the nearby Drum Tower as well. There are regular musical performances in both towers, and we were able to watch the spectacular (and loud!) drumming show.
Many of the main streets in Xī’ān have expensive shops that cater for foreign tourists; this meant that there was also plenty of food catering for different tastes. For a change we had a lovely dinner in a Japanese restaurant. Owen and Liam had both been very excited by the pool table in the hostel’s bar, and so we finished up with several hours there. The table was very big for Liam, but he loved playing anyway! We got to meet several other guests, as well as a few locals who were keen to try out their English (and play some free pool!)
After getting to our hostel we had some basic logistical things to organise: our next set of train tickets; transport & guide for the Terracotta Army; and some foreign exchange at the Bank of China. Our guide books mention that the bank has a reputation for being slow, and Peter reinforced this by waiting for about 40 minutes. In fact the bank was only partly to blame, with a single belligerent Western customer holding up the queue for over half an hour. The only upside is that he wasn’t Australian.
Xī’ān is one of the few cities that still has an old city wall – in this case the wall is a rectangle that totals 14km in length. The centre area is an excellent scale for walking around and so we spent most of the afternoon looking around some of the nearby streets. Our hostel was near the South gate of the wall, and it took about 15 minutes to walk to the famous Bell Tower towards the middle of town.
We enjoyed exploring the Bell Tower and then headed over to the nearby Drum Tower as well. There are regular musical performances in both towers, and we were able to watch the spectacular (and loud!) drumming show.
Many of the main streets in Xī’ān have expensive shops that cater for foreign tourists; this meant that there was also plenty of food catering for different tastes. For a change we had a lovely dinner in a Japanese restaurant. Owen and Liam had both been very excited by the pool table in the hostel’s bar, and so we finished up with several hours there. The table was very big for Liam, but he loved playing anyway! We got to meet several other guests, as well as a few locals who were keen to try out their English (and play some free pool!)
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