Day 21 part 1: City Wall and Markets

We had a relaxing morning before going to the Xi’an history museum. There was the world’s largest guardian dragon, but other than that there wasn’t a whole lot in way of content. Different galleries talked about the different time eras of the area. I enjoyed the videos they had playing throughout the different galleries. There were subtitles so we could follow along. It was interesting but the Shanghai museum had a lot more stuff.

After lunch we got to walk on the city wall! There’s a massive wall that surrounds the entire inner part of the city. It was built during the Ming dynasty and has been very well preserved. It is a defining characteristic of the city and there’s a really neat policy that you can’t build anything higher than the wall within the borders. We walked for 20 minutes in one direction and we didn’t even get a quarter of the way around one side. It was a great place to stroll, they had music playing on the side. A lot of it was soft jazz which drove Ryan nuts and amused me greatly.

Xi'an City Wall

We also visited a popular market street. I had a love/hate relationship with the Chinese markets. On one hand, you could find anything you ever wanted for ridiculously cheap. On the other, getting that cheap thing you found involved much nagging and haggling. Even so, I got a collection of sparkly hair pieces for my girls back home. The lady originally wanted to charge me 90yuan for one. I ended up with five for 120. Ryan found a fantastic giant Guan Yu statue, no joke this thing was like an 18 inch fat statue and it looked amazing. I think he paid 180 for it and I know he could have gotten it for less but he actually really wanted it so he caved earlier than he should have. He also got a belt which was a great story. He wanted the belt for 20yuan. He haggled and haggled with the lady but she wouldn’t go below 40 so we walked away. As they always do when you walk away she kept lowering the price, eventually she yelled out 30. About 10 minutes later Ryan decides that he really did want the belt and he was willing to pay the 30 for it. So we go back, he picks up the belt and pulls 25yuan out of his wallet, turns out that was all the cash he had left, but the girl he was talking to before was busy. A different one walked up and with almost no words, he handed her the money and she put the belt in a bag for him. We decided there was a new element to the game. Have the money in hand and they’ll take it without all the back and forth. 

Markets in Xi'an

Day 25: Markets and Ducks

Our last official day in China. We visited a local lama temple. It was originally designed as a palace for a prince in the Qing dynasty then converted into a religious temple some years later. It wasn’t the most exciting place we visited on our trip. The architecture was nothing new and we had seen Buddha statues before. It was fun though, in the middle of one courtyard they had a statue people could throw money on. It was designed in the shape of a mountain and it had intricate carvings, on the bottom represented Earth, the middle top was heaven and the very top was a temple that represented the highest level of heaven. People would toss coins and where ever it landed was where your next life would be. Ryan threw a coin and it landed on the very top part of the divine heaven. I tossed a coin and I was happy it managed to land on the lower part of heaven but as it hit the pile it knocked two other coins off…Oops.

Ever since we visited the first temple and I saw the people praying with the incense I had been dying to try it myself. Buddhism was actually my first “religion” growing up. It was the first one that really made sense to me and I got very much into trying to create a zen lifestyle. As we passed one of the kiosks where people prayed I saw two incense sticks in the garbage. It made sense since you were supposed to have three, you can’t pray properly with just two. But I picked them up, and as I did an older Asian gentleman instantly handed me another one so I could have a complete set of three. Super excited I lit my sticks on fire. I bowed three times in each direction as I addressed the different levels of buddhas and I asked for guidance. When I was done I tossed the sticks into the open fire. I felt fantastic.

In the afternoon we visited the Silk markets. It was a five story indoor mall made entirely out of independent kiosk sellers. This place was huge and consisted of every single thing you could ever want. I wasn’t really a fan though. They were used to tourists so they were more pushy than other places we had been (don’t go to the shoe section downstairs, those people literally grab you as you walk by) and it was actually more expensive than other vendors we had been to in the smaller towns. Even so, it was our last day and we still had money to burn. I bought a nice tea pot and Ryan got some toys.

Dinner was special for our last evening. We had the infamous Peking Duck China is known for. It was delicious and we said our official goodbye to our Wendy Wu Father, Gump. We had taken up a collection for him and he was very embarrassed to take our generous tip but he deserved all of it and more. I’ve already sung his praises but I’ll say it again, he took care of us like we really were family and none of us will ever forget his kindness. 

Chef preparing Peking Duck