Xi'an

Hello Everybody,

I’m so sorry that its been so long since I last updated my post, but we got back from Xi’an last week and this trip definitely is worthy of the tremendous length that this entry will prove to bring. Anyways some basic info on Xi’an is that it is the most historic city in China. 13 dynasties have called this city there capital, so you can Imagine the emphasis that is placed on it. Our tour guide said that Xi’an is up there with Rome when it comes to the most historic cities in the world, and after our trip I think I might actually believe such a bold statement. Anyways, this trip was the AFS culture trip of the semester so we were in Xi’an with all the other AFS students from all around China. And I legally have to make the below statement so bare with me:

I would like to personally thank Ms. Hillary Rodem Clinton for sponsoring my and all the other NSLI-Y student’s trip to the beautiful and historic city of Xi’an.

Ok thank you, and now with out any further delay I would like to present to you for the very first time on cyber space Bens Blog Xi’an edition.

Monday:
We arrived to Xi’an early on Monday morning and discovered that AFS didn’t have any activities planned on Monday because students would be arriving throughout the day. We went out for some McDonalds breakfast and after that we came back to check into our room shower and nap. We got going again around noon and started to walk to an Indian restaurant that Sanjay had found on the internet. We weren’t really sure where we were going but that is part of the fun! Anyways we got to see a lot of the city and after a few hours finally Sanjay turned around, sniffed the air and said that we were close. We found it and Sanjay picked out some of his favorite things and we enjoyed some excellent Indian cuisine. My favorite was the Mango Lassie! Anyways after that late lunch we were still tired so we returned to the hotel and napped until dinner. Dinner was the first time that we saw the rest of the other AFS students and it was awesome to meet kids from every corner of the world. After a small welcome we left dinner and went out to see the city at night.

Tuesday:
For our first day we started out with a bang! First on the list was going to visit the Terracotta Warriors. We drove about an hour away and I was super excited because this was the thing that I was most excited to see. Anyways the Museum grounds consisted of five separate buildings. The first was a theater where a movie was shown giving a history of the soldiers. Then we walked over to see the main event. Pit number on which is the largest pit with the most warriors in the museum. This place was absolutely massive and it was unreal to see the terracotta warriors in person. The most surprising thing for me was the number of soldiers that remained broken. There were excavations going on as we were walking by so that was cool to see. After Pit one, we naturally went to pit two followed by pit three. These were much smaller but did boast a few things worth mentioning. We saw the kneeling archer which was the only warrior not destroyed by later dynasties. I can not supply a good enough history of the warriors, but feel free to read about it on the internet. In the fifth building were the two chariots excavated from the pits, but once again I don’t really know a lot about them. After the museum and lunch we drove another 90 minutes and visited a Chinese orphanage. There we interacted with the children and gave them presents. After an hour or so we drove back to Xi’an and called it a day.

Wednesday:
We spent this day traveling to a neighboring city. About an hour into the journey we stopped at a small village and there went into an artist’s home. She gave us a few demonstrations and then after a pitch to buy her art work, we browsed her galleries. Then we went to a different home where local foods were prepared for us to enjoy. And then it was back on the bus for another three hours. The scenery on the way was spectacular. We were driving threw the mountains and it was the most beautiful place in china, that I have seen yet. We stopped at a dam and traveled on an old walkway that was next to the river. It truly was a spectacular place. After some more driving we arrived in the city ate dinner and checked into our rooms. Wednesday was filled with allot of traveling but the scenery was really worth it.

Thursday:
We spent our morning exploring two different temple/ museum places. These places were old traditional style temple grounds, which consists of rooms on the perimeter and open areas with walkways and gardens in the middle space. I think I completely failed at describing them but you get the general idea. One of the temples was dedicated to an emperor of the providence who is one of the most historical men of the area, and so people came to sacrifice incense to him and show their respect. Both were incredibly beautiful and the history was interesting to learn about. After lunch we packed up and headed back to Xi’an. Another long but Beautiful trip through the mountains. When we arrived in Xi’an we went to eat a Jiao Zi Marathon, for those of you like myself who cant speak Chinese, Jiao Zi are dumplings. They brought an enormous amount of dumplings out in flavors I never knew existed. We tasted about 20 flavors of jiao zi… simply unbelievable. After dinner we went out side to this huge market street and Sanjay and I did some great work shopping. We are still practicing our bartering technique but we are definitely getting much better. I bout a few souvenirs and the best thing I came across with was the memory of this market. It was simply unbelievable the almost or castrated hustle of venders and shoppers, the fury of negotiation but the shared satisfaction of making the deal, this is something I will never forget.

Friday:
This was our last day of planned activity and turned out to be one of the best days in Xi’an. We started in the morning by going to the city wall, which was built a long time ago and used by many Chinese dynasties. We walked through a museum and saw a part of the wall that had not been renovated at all. Then we went up to the real wall and walked along it for a while. We came across a bike shop and decided to rent bikes. David and I shared a tandem bicycle and biked around the whole wall. It was about 13 Km long and was a great way to see the city. In the afternoon we bussed about two hours away to the most impressive temple that I have ever seen. I cant even explain this one to you, but it was completely modern and massive. And a really interesting thing was that it had one of Siddhartha Gama’s fingers. For those of you like me that had no idea who that was, it was the Buddha. They had one of his fingers, and we saw it from about 20 meters away. All in all the temple was completely spectacular and it was worth the trip to go see.

Saturday:
People began to depart home but we were lucky and our train didn’t leave until the evening so we were able to spend a whole other day in Xi’an. We were able to sleep in and after a great nights rest, went to see the famous wild goose pagoda in Xi’an. We didn’t actually enter because it was a bit expensive but it was equally as impressive to see from the outside. We also ate at the Indian restaurant again to give Sanjay his last fill for the next two months here. After lunch we went back to the market street and looked around some more. Afterwards we met our teacher in the hotel lobby and we departed for the train station. Our train left at 8:40 and as it had been before ten hours later we were home in Shijiazhuang.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This concludes my very brief and watered down presentation of Ben in Xi’an. Thanks for reading and I miss you all very much. I will get back on to the weekly routine of posting on Mondays so look for that. Peace and Love from China.