Three Weeks With My Brother(s): Part 4 (Xi'an)

January 19, 2016

Shivering outside the
Beijing Train Station

We were packed and down to the lobby of the Novotel Peace Hotel in Beijing by 6 a.m. to collect our pre-ordered breakfast boxes and take the half-hour drive to the train station.  Again, a long, cold walk across a wide expanse to get to the station.  It seems nowhere can you drive up to the door of a place here - perhaps it is an effort to keep the citizens tough.  Joe actually left us waiting in the cold while he went to retrieve the tickets - couldn't go inside without them!  We huddled close together and tried to think warm thoughts.  The plaza was very busy, bustling with people, probably because of pre-Chinese New Year travel.  We had to go through a strict security check, where they indicated they were going to look through the bag our guide was toting for us; but when they saw the innocuous crew that followed him in, they realized their folly and waved us on.



Our wonderful guide walked us all the way to the gate and waited with us to personally see us to onto the train.  We had some time to wait, so we dug into our boxed breakfasts.  I was amused by the sign posted outside the ladies' room there, but tremendously happy to find a sit-down toilet available (in the handicapped stall).

We queued up at the time stated on our tickets, but stood quite a long time before the crowd moved toward the platform.  A shiny, futuristic-looking bullet train awaited us, and we wandered toward the back of the train to find our car.  It was very similar to the inside of a plane, but with a bit more room in the aisles, and a hot water dispenser available at the front of each car.  We learned the Chinese are fond of drinking hot water, or bringing their own tea or instant noodles on the train.  Many carry a small thermos with them.  The screens at the front of the train cars ran a loop of Youtube videos of babies making sour faces and cute animal videos.  Probably a pretty effective way to tame the crowds.  Each car also displayed a constant readout of the speed of the train across the front.

The highest was around 305 km/h
(about 190 mph)

Status-conscious crew awaiting their train -
porters in front, cleaners behind

The hazy smog had returned, making it difficult to enjoy the landscape.  The numerous skyscrapers eventually gave way to farmland and mountains, with some interesting land formations thrown in.

The trains are incredibly clean, with cleaners walking through regularly with brooms and mops.  I had the bottle from the breakfast box orange juice in the outside pocket of my backpack, and it slipped out and crashed to the floor, shattering in the aisle.  A young Aussie woman immediately jumped up to find someone to clean it up, and a Chinese man behind me helped me pick up the big pieces - a nice international display of kindness!

We were getting a bit hungry, and shared some Beng-Beng bars I'd brought from Thailand.  We also dug into our oranges from our breakfast boxes.  I offered half to the Chinese man next to me, who decided to attempt a conversation, but we didn't get very far.  Smiles communicated all we needed to say.

We arrived in Xian (pronounced "Shee-ahn") at 2 p.m., and had to show our tickets to exit (!) - luckily, Joe had warned us about this, so we kept them fairly handy.  We were instructed to give the tickets to our next guide, Sally, who would turn them in for Joe to be reimbursed.  We were startled to learn that the guides had to put out their own money for some things, to be reimbursed later.  One of our flights was cancelled, to be replaced by another train ride instead, and Sally had to pay us our refunds out of pocket.  Don't think this would float most places.

Sally told us that Xian is like a professor during the day, and an "ABC girl" at night - Attractive, Beautiful, and Charming.  It is the oldest of the four great capitals of China, dating back to the third century with the Han dynasty.  Ninety-nine percent of the eight-million people in Xian are of Han descent.  Xian has an ancient city wall surrounding it, with a bell and drum tower, just like Beijing.  The bells used to be rung in the morning to announce the opening of the city gates, and the drums in the evening indicated its closing.

Best tea in China!

We were first driven to the Muslim Market, famous for its dumplings, among other things.  As the starting place of the ancient Silk Road, Xian attracted a number of merchants and students from Arabic countries, who eventually settled in this area.  They are called "Hui," and number about 60,000.  The shops are all operated by Hui ethnic people.  We were led to a restaurant for lunch, and enjoyed more delicious Chinese food - dumplings, snow peas, rice and Sechwan chicken (again with bones!).  Many of us agreed the tea was the best we had ever tasted - a green tea with dates, rose, chrysantemum and other items floating in it.  Sublime.

Next we were whisked down a narrow alley to the Great Mosque, the oldest and biggest Islamic mosque in China.  It was quite small in comparison to mosques in other countries, but significant in a communist country.  It had a small courtyard with several stone carvings, including a tablet that listed the names of donors (in Chinese, of course), and tortoise-like creature that Sally explained was "Bixi," the ninth of the nine sons of the Dragon King in Chinese mythology.  According to legend, each son had a specific ability, and Bixi was able to carry heavy objects on his shell.  Here it was holding up heavy stone pillars.  We also saw a stone structure that M joked was a guillotine ;-), and a tree that only blooms in winter, with tiny yellow blossoms.

Bixi

Tacky promo photo taken by our guide;
winter-blooming tree behind us

Heading back toward the market, we were counselled to barter, and not to pay any more than half the asking price.  The sellers quoted ridiculously high prices, but quickly dropped when you tried to bargain.  I'm sure this is meant to make you feel like you got a great deal.  The language barrier was remedied by the large calculators each vendor toted, typing in their price, then clearing it and offering the calculator to the buyer to put in their counter-offer.  (I've seen this in Thailand, too).

durian!

Our guide waiting for us to catch up

Most of the wares are those one would find at every open market in Asia.  Some unusual things that caught our attention:  pig's feet lined up on food vendors' carts, a taffy-puller that stretched his confection from his shop out into the street, and several vendors selling "Oba-Mao" T-shirts with our president's likeness.  I picked up a small, lacquer box for 20 CNY, about $3 USD, talked down from 100 CNY.


We didn't have much time to browse - our guide seemed anxious to keep us moving.  We stopped in a small park to view the Drum tower, then were scooted back to the van and taken to our hotel.  The Grand Mercure hotel was part of a big complex of four hotels/buildings.  Ours was tucked away in the back, with no bar or restaurant.  We walked across the way to find refreshment, and came upon a group of young people who were setting up red votive candles in a heart shape on the ground.  We learned a young man was setting the stage to propose marriage - that, along with the many colorful lights on the buildings, confirmed Xian's "ABC girl" status!

 massive drums on the lowest level

The proposal setup...

Drum tower lit up at night (ABC!)