Ancient Silk Road - Xi'an

So, this year for our "spring break" (a.k.a. "May Holiday") I decided to visit a friend of mine (and a few students) in one of the must-see places in China, the ancient city of Xi'an. Most people will probably recognize the Terra Cotta Warriors....
















....but there are other things to do/see in the city as well. For example:


Bell Tower & Drum Tower





(in ancient times, the warning system that heralded imminent peril - today we like to call them "tornado sirens")

;)


City Wall



(by day or by night, a neat place to see)


Muslim District/Market



(one of the largest - basically, in this case, a huge tourist trap with tons of shops, etc.; excellent dried fruit, as is true of most Western China; lots of "bargains" and gift ideas for the folks back home)


Big Wild Goose Pagoda & square
Small Wild Goose Pagoda

(alas, time did not permit my seeing either of these places, although my understanding is that they're really neat - just like most other pagodas I've seen.....)


Banpo Village

(an interesting place on the way to the Terra Cotta Warriors - an ancient village that is still being excavated; a neat look into history - unfortunately no pictures right now)


History Museum

Including some interesting artifacts:







(the cool thing about the horses has something to do with the glaze and how they got their color - I don't remember specifics, though)







(I think we found the missing 8th dwarf....)


Forest of Steles Museum



(a nice garden surrounded a veritable treasure trove of these ancient "libraries", called "steles"; the museum included whole rooms filled, wall-to-wall and all between, with these large slabs of stone covered in Chinese characters; some more commonly known steles include writings of Confucius and ancient Chinese dictionaries)





The favorite stele for myself and most Christians is the one pictured above. If you look very closely at the top of the black space you can barely discern a cross etched into the stone. An early sect of "Nestorian Christians" settled in China, as evidenced by this particular stele.



(Kudos if you can read this sign! It explains a bit about the previous stele)


Xi'an itself is quite a modern, westernized city.



It seems that, no matter where you go in the world, you will always be able to find a little piece of home....




Other things to do:

enjoy the local flora/fauna....



go out for a night on the town....





sample the local cuisine....



and just be generally silly....



Pretty cunning, don't you think? :)


And it was, of course, great to see my friends and students. :)