Thoughts on China

Hi, again! Once again, I’ve had a long day full of cool things from a long time ago. I was once again accompanied by the same young lady from Hunnan. Today we went around in a taxi. She was invaluable when it came time to eat, since I would never have known what or how to order alone, but more on that later…

Before I begin, here’s a link to today’s pictures…

We started the day at the historical museum here in Xi’an, which is renowned throughout the world with good reason. They had displayed, in four collections (large rooms), an unbelievable array of intact tools, vessels, weapons, etc., from the paleolithic era through several thousand years of China’s history. We had an English speaking guide, who gave her name as “Lily”. She was very knowledgeable and we had a good conversation throughout the tour. It was Y120 ($16) for the personal guided tour and it was well worth it. Lily is interested in ancient European (e.g., Rome) civilization, as well, and discussed the parallels and influences of different cultures on the Chinese artifacts we were seeing.

After that interesting tour, we went to the Wild Goose pagoda. The present structure was built between 701 and 704, during the Tang dynasty. It was important in the introduction of Buddhism into China.

After the Wild Goose Pagoda, we went to the Muslim section of town where we went through the market and then to the old mosque, which is really a nice example of early Chinese architecture.

Then, it was time for lunch. We had steamed dumplings (vegetable and sheep (which is this town’s favorite type of meat, I’m finding)), which were delicious.

After lunch, we went to the Bell and Drum towers, which are about 3 stories each and have some interesting exhibits inside, as well as good views of main boulevards in Xi’an.

We then went to a calligraphy museum known as the Stone Forest (碑林, or bēilín). This also serves as a Confucius (孔夫子, or Kǒngfūzǐ) Miao (temple). What it is, is a collection of over 3000 (only 1/3 of them are on display, due to space constraints) stone tablets from hundreds to thousands of years old, which have had Chinese calligraphy chiseled into them. It is really an amazing collection and lets you see, in one place, all you’d need to develop a history of Chinese characters. I also had an English speaking guide here, who was excellent. I am at a stage where I recognize a number of the characters, but am just starting my learning. Once I become more proficient, I can see how it would be fascinating to spend a great deal of time there.

After the Stone Forest, we walked to the old city wall and walked along it for a stretch.

Finally, we had dinner, consisting of a hot dish of vegetables of some kind (it was good), along with a cold noodle dish that had a peanut butter and hot pepper sauce that was really good and reminded me a little of Thai food. We also had roast sheep kebobs which had a really good, spicy rub applied to them and a mutton soup. I don’t know what all parts of the sheep were in the soup, but I tried them. Some weren’t that great and others were passable. The broth was good. The peanut sauce noodles were my favorite dish.

Finally, we took a taxi back to the hotel at about 7PM, 11 hours after we had started. I’ll sleep well again tonight! Sorry this was more of a laundry list today, but we did so much that it would be a novel if I wrote a lot about each thing.