Now that I have my freedom of free internet back again...maybe I can get some of our trips published.
This is the second part of our family trip to Beijing/Xian. After we left Beijing, we flew to Xian. If you have ever heard of the famous terra cotta warriors of China...that is Xian. This is a small (only a 3-5 million or so) city to the North West of Shanghai. It is an awsome city. Excpet that it rained most of the time we were there, we had a fantastic time.
China has spent millions of $'s at the site of the Warriors. This is one of the buildings below at the site.
The far building is one that houses one of the larger excavation sites.
And this is inside that building...
We were very lucky in that we went on a weekday and not during the peak of the tourist season. The place was relatively quiet. During the summer, this place is PACKED. It sounds like it is difficult to actually get a very good view of the warriors.
And finally the musum "gift shop". I have to admit, we made a fairly substational purchase. Actually, it should show up shortly at our house here in Midland. We had it shipped directly from Xian. Here is Abby standing with some of the replics that are built and sold to pore tourists like ourselves!
Much of China population is Han Chinese. However, in Xian, a large Muslim Chinese population exists. We walked through a large Muslum area that inlucded a very large market, food, etc.
We toured a very old muslum temple in the heart of the city. We got there right at the time for the call to prayer. There were all kinds of men (no woman) running in to take showers and go to pray.
Claire had made a purchase at the market...she had done a little bargeting and was quite pleased with herself. She bought the muscial turtle for 10 RMB...about $1.50.
Eating some of the local favorites at the market.
The old city of Xi'an has a wall built all the way around the "old part". Kinda like a small version of the great wall. This wall protected Xi'an many years ago from invasion. We found out that many cities (Beijing included) in China used to have these walls. Unfortuanlly, during the culture revolution, many of these walls were destroyed. However, the Xi'an wall was proteced by the local people and the did not allow it to be destroyed. So, it still stands today. Beijings wall for example has mostly been destroyed with only some of the gates still standing.
This particular wall was fairly old but well maintained. We took a bike ride around part of it. It was a great view with absolutly no traffic (who wanted to go out in rain).
The random man was a great guy (Raphael) who happened to have grown up in Xi'an and was our guide while we were there.
Rapehel took us to one of his favorite noodles restaurants.
We then went to a local show. This is one of our favorite Chinese insturments. We love the way it sounds.
Another of our faborites...the 1000 Hand Buddha
One of my favorite part of the trips that we have gone on is always the human side. On this particular trip, our guide took us to his family (he lived there for 7 years as a child during the culture revolution) cave. His Aunt still lives there today. It is a cave in the side of the mountain. There a a bunch of these caves about 2 hours outside the city...and they are all still inhabited.
This was the back room that seemed to be utilized more as a storage room. Raphel said that when he lived there, the back part was used for the family farm animals...pigs, goats, etc.
This is the outside of the cave.
This is the main room. Since the grandfather died (he lived in the cave most of his life), she turned her home into a Majong home to make an income. There was an active game going on when we got there. Of course, the girls just got right involved. Not good since I am sure money was involved!
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