Oh Xi'an!...

Terracotta Army


At the Muslim Mosque


The Chicken Man, on the streets of Xi'an. Loved him. Got a great smile out of him after this picture :)


The Bell Tower


Muslim Quarter Street.


This is the sugar balloon man. He was unreal.

Xi'an was an adventure from the beginning, from the train ride there, to the train ride out. We booked sleeper tickets on the way there and rode through the night, which was actually very nice. But it was an experience. Ooooophf! I will tell you that. Jaimie and I were in one room in a car with 6 bunks in it. It is VERY small. Three bunks on each side, with little space in between each one and the top bunks really didn't even give the option to sit up... and Jaimie and I both had the top bunks! :) It was so uncomfortable but was really so fun. There were 4 random Chinese people sharing the room with us. Two sweet ladies on the bottom and two very smelly, unkempt, loud, dirty men in the middle. But we LOVED IT! We tried to make conversation with all of them, I don't know why... we don't speak Chinese ha... but it was just fun to try. I just felt so dirty the entire time. We were in such a small, tight, cramped space, and the Chinese men were hacking all night and in China it's not uncommon to just cough up and spit out whatever...whevever! Literally. Even indoors, in a public place, or on a train. That was one thing, I had to just laugh out loud at every time to just stay sane. The sleeper train was an experience, a great one :)!

I really loved Xi'an. I did. I'm a bit disappointed we only got to spend 2 days there. It is a rather small city, but FULL of people. There are so many people in China. It's unreal. The population of Xi'an is 6 million. SIX MILLION! Yeah. Xi'an is surrounded by a city wall. Which I think is just fun, and neat. It makes it so cozy and special. Directly in the middle of the city is a Bell Tower, which they ring every morning, and just beside it a few blocks down is a Drum Tower which they beat every night. [I just wrote a real long paragraph full of witty tales and exciting stories from our time in Xian. It erased. All of it, spontaneously and I haven't the slightest idea how to retrace it] I suppose the purpose of that insert was to just make me feel better about writing a really lazy next paragraph. It's amazing how time consuming this journal blogging thing can be. SOOO. Prior to arriving in Xi'an we had heard that the Muslim Quarters and the Great Muslim Mosque is a must go see while we were there, so the day we arrived, we walked down to the quarters which is just behind the Drum Tower. The plan was to walk down grab some lunch at the quarters, go see the Mosque then we could go explore the city a bit after that. But we had no idea just how wild, and crazy, and FUN the Muslim quarters were going to be. First of all, it was so packed, for us to get a quick bite to eat and get out would not have been probable because of how many people there were. There were little side vendors for food, and shopping everywhere, just lined up on the sides of the streets creating a pathway. The food all looked so interesting we wanted to just try everything. And when it's all 2 or 3 yuan for each thing, that makes it hard not to because it is just so cheap. There was a man that was taking sugar and making animal shapes out of it and sticking them on sticks, so it was like a sugar balloon on a stick in an animal shape. It was super interesting to watch him do it. The other vendors sold silk, pearls, jade, other jewelries, just all sorts of stuff. There was a little old lady on the side of the road in a corner weaving shoes and bags out of this cool rope material and I bought a pair of shoes from her. They are way rad, and appear to be very sturdy. I don't know. My favorite part was the lady, although the shoes are indeed very great. She made them right in front of me, and I love that! So, our quick trip to the Muslim quarters turned into an all day excursion of shopping and bartering (which we all know how much I love doing that) but all along we were sort of half looking for the Mosque as well because it was supposed to be right there mixed with all the action. We looked everywhere, and we even found another mosque that wasn't the great mosque we were looking for but it was still a really great building. The architecture of these buildings are so great. The way they are constructed is so interesting and it's amazing how much the construction has to do with what is done within it's walls. Once we finally found the Great Mosque, only Jaimie and I went in. There was no tour guide or anything, it was very casual. It was evening and there weren't a lot of other tourists or people in there except for us and the residents which we loved because all day was spent fighting our way through the crowd and it was so nice to just go into the mosque and look around quietly. It was beautiful and there was something so peaceful about being there. The little Muslim men that we ran into walking through gave us million dollar smiles every time they saw us. They were so adorable. I think they appreciated our curiosity and our interest to learn more about them.

Day 2 in Xi'an was spent at the Museum of the Terracotta Warriors. A phenominal thing INDEED. It's wild. And the craziest thing for me is thinking that they were discovered in 1974. That was not long ago at all. I can't even fathom being the farmer that made the discovery. Apparently he was digging near a well on his land and it went right into some of the warriors. Can you imagine discovering that? Whoa! At the end of the tour, he was sitting at a table signing autographs. ha. Funniest old man. He was just this sweet, wrinkly old man, puffing on his pipe like he had the best life ever. I probably would too if I discovered 6 million + hand made terracotta warriors under my farm land :) No one was allowed to speak to him or take photographs, only get signatures so it was a bit awkward but it was fun being able to see the farmer who discovered it! The Museum was neat though, it was an actual archeological site, with tables, and tape and everything. Each one of the warriors had a different face expression. Not one was the same. So phenomenal. I can't imagine hand making all of those. Wow.

We came home and Jaimie and I did a little city walk, and found a really excellent place to eat. It is like the equivelant of our McDonalds. They were everywhere in Xi'an, we didn't see them anywhere else in China but we saw them everywhere there. There logo was a monkeys face and it was called, "BEST FOOD EVER." Or something like that. So funny. Anyways, so we figured since we saw it everywhere we'd go in and check it out. . . and it was successful. We loved it.

To top off the evening, Jaimie and I went to the supermarket real fast to get some fruit for our train ride the next day and when we got back to the hostel, Brianna told us that she made some friends with a few Turkish Islamic guys who apparently wanted to take us all out to dinner. They were talking to Brianna and it came up that we don't smoke, drink (both things that Muslim's try to avoid as well) and that all of our parents were still together. Interesting, I'm not quite sure how it came up, but it did. I know that sounds way sketchy, meet three foreign Turkish guys and then just go to dinner with them, that doesn't sound very smart. We definitley had similar thoughts; we did give it a lot of thought and talked about it and decided we felt good about it and if it wasn't something we were supposed to do, we would know. There was Serkan, Ossman, and Harry. All three of them lived there in Xi'an, spoke Chinese fluently and were trying to start their own business importing granite and marble and other flooring from Turkey. They first came to China to study but ended up staying. Serkan speaks the most english. He spoke very well. Ossman's english was also very good, and Harry didn't speak english at all. I loved them. So they took us down to the Muslim quarters to a hidden little restaurant and they bought us a traditional Muslim meal. It was very yummy, but I just enjoyed our chat. It was so great. We established that we are Christian and they talked to us about their religion and what they believe. Serkan talked mostly about how they believe in one creator. The more we talked, the more impressed I was with all three of them. Such good guys. Their beliefs are so similar to ours and they were so sweet. Serkan expressed how impressed he was with us, and told us that was why they wanted to get to know us. He told us, "I'm sure that you were hesitant to come with us, and you didn't have to but we know that you put your trust in your God to keep you safe with us tonight." ha... we laughed and told him that we did indeed talk about it and we felt like it would be okay and that God would protect us. So he was so cute, he said, "Well then, I know he is looking down on us now so we had better get you home safely." :) It was invigorating to sit down and have such an uplifting conversation with complete strangers. There are good people everywhere you go.

Last night in Xi'an, and we had a great time.