Our day started surprisingly early, mostly from the construction noises that we could hear even from 7 storeys up! We fuelled ourselves with a breakfast beer before setting off for the day to explore the beautiful city of Xi'an, heading in the direction of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Shaanxi History Museum. We were surprised to feel the difference in temperature, it was a beautiful crisp morning of 10 degrees celsius, in comparison to the previous day when it reached 30 degrees celsius. I'm so excited for cold weather & to finally wear some of the winter clothes I've been lugging around in my pack.We stopped in at a local restaurant for some food, Tom ordered this pastry meat meal he has had before, a guy at the counter could speak some english and was very amused by my pointing at the menu pictures. After we had ordered and paid, he informed us that there was donkey meat inside the pastry while laughing. Were not sure if he was joking or being serious... lol?
The Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Also known as the Dayan Pagoda, or the Giant Goose Pagoda was built in the great Ci'en temple, South of the city wall of Xi'an. It was built in AD 652 & was built as a place for the monk Xuanzang to translate Buddhist scriptures. Xuanzang travelled for 17 years through 100 countries obtaining Buddhist materials, mostly from India, the cradle of Buddhism. All of which was stored inside the pagoda.
It has undergone many restorations & extensions, initially starting at 5 levels, It was later doubled to 10 before being devastated by an earthquake. The pagoda we see now is 7 levels, 64.5 metres high & appears to be on a slight lean. It was very humbling walking up through the inside of the pagoda, running our fingers along the ancient brick work & inscriptions. It is such an ancient building, still holding amazing Buddhist relics & spiritual belief.
As a place of holy worship, with monks still present in Ci'en temple, we weren't able to take many photos of what we saw. Some things just have to remain as memories!
After climbing the pagoda, we spent a few hours walking through the Ci'en temple admiring the beautiful gardens & watching people light incense and pray to their favoured buddhist statue before heading towards the Museum.
When we left the Ci'en Temple grounds we were hit with our first dust storm of the trip, only mildly uncomfortable, mostly due to the wind being fiercely cold in comparison to the warm day. Thankfully it didn't last too long.Once we got to the Shaanxi History Museum there was a moderate line of people waiting to gain entry and an announcement that said the museum had reached its daily capacity and would not be permitting entry to anyone else today. On their website it says they only issue tickets to 6,000 people a day, 3,000 in the morning and another 3,000 in the evening. Maybe we will have another go tomorrow or hold out for a museum in Beijing.
We start to head back in the direction of our hotel, realising for the first time today that our legs are sore, after checking our exercise trackers we realise we have walked 17 kilometres! its very easy to do when exploring a city, its amazing how quickly our fitness is improving, it feels like only last week our legs were protesting at 5 kilometres.
We spent a few hours at the hotel 'refuelling' before heading out to into the city centre to enjoy the night life. Once in the city it's hard to miss the ancient bell tower of Xi'an, geographically marking the centre of Xi'an city. Built in 1384, it stands 36 metres high & is an impressive sight, especially at night. Located northwest of the centre of town & the bell tower is another ancient tower that dominates the sky & demands attention. The Drum Tower of Xi'an, built in 1380. It used to signal the running of time & an emergency situation, now it houses the biggest drum in China. Amazingly this tower, although built in ancient times with posts, panels & brickwork, doesn't contain a single iron nail. It also has 24 drums on its North & South sides, representing twenty four solar terms, which was an ancient Chinese weather calendar, in order to guide agriculture production. North of the city centre and the Drum Tower is known as the Muslim hub, with over 20,000 Muslims living here & about 10 mosques. Every night they have a night market, THE BEST night market we have been to in China! The market was a hectic blitz of colour, community spirit, smells both good & bad, music, laughter, yelling, bartering, food of all kinds, cheap trinkets, expensive souvenirs, traffic on foot & wheels. We got swept up in it for a good hour or so. We loved every second, being a part of the chaos. All of a sudden it was 10pm, 10 degrees and starting to rain. We successfully caught a bus all the way to our hotel doorstep! With a total of 25 kilometres of exploring done today its been another fantastic day in Xian, a city we both love & would 100% come back to.
-Alli
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