XI'AN, CHINA: SLEEPING, EATING, AND STROLLING IN XI'AN

We were fortunate to start off our Grand Tour of China and the Stans with a night in the Wyndham Grand Xian South. Rated #1 on TripAdvisor among all the hotels in Xi'an, it was definitely one of the top hotels of our trip. I checked the price for a room there in November and found a fare of $92, which includes their incredible breakfast buffet. It's a steal.

The lobby has some fun props for photos:

John loved this terracotta warrior and tried to get the hotel to sell it to him:

XI'AN, CHINA: THE GREAT WILD GOOSE PAGODA

One of the historical figures we knew nothing about before this trip but whom we came to really admire and appreciate was a Chinese monk named Xuanzang (pronounced Schwen-zong) who lived from 602-664 AD. He traveled along the Silk Road and throughout India for sixteen years as he studied Buddhism, and when he finally returned to China, he brought back hundreds of sutras, or Buddhist texts, which he translated from Sanskrit and which had a huge impact on Chinese Buddhism. Here he is:

A five-story, 175-foot-tall pagoda (a tiered tower with multiple eaves) was built in 652 AD to house the manuscripts brought to China by Xuanzang and to provide a place for him to translate them. The original building started to decay almost immediately, and a new 10-story pagoda was built from 701-704 AD with mud and bricks and no cement. However, wars and the 1556 earthquake damaged THAT building, and during its restoration three stories were removed, leaving the current seven-story, 200-foot-tall pagoda that still stands today. This site is a huge tourist attraction for the Chinese people, who were the majority of those visiting the day we were there:

CHINA: ARRIVING IN XI'AN AND VISITING THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS

Traveler beware.

Upon arriving in the Xi'an Airport, we were almost instantly accosted by a smiling young man speaking passable English asking if we needed transportation. He could offer the four of us a taxi to our hotel for just 400 Yuan. At first we were a bit confused, and as a result he latched on to us like a tick. Remembering advice from our tour company, we told him no, that we would talk to the travel desk about transportation. However, he continued to hound us, even when we ceased to respond to him or make eye contact.  He was still there after we used the restroom, and he would not take no for an answer. Ultimately, he finally left us alone after we talked to the travel desk and booked a minivan taxi for 200 Yuan (about $30 for the 45 minute drive to our hotel).

Later, we heard from friends who arrived a day earlier that they had accepted the offer of one the persistent solicitors. They had paid the premium price and then thought they were going to die as their driver reached speeds of what they guessed was 100 mph or more and as he swung in and out of traffic with total abandon.

Lesson learned: Don't use the guys bugging you inside the airport. In fact, don't even speak to them.

We made it safely to the hotel (more about the hotel later), crashed immediately, and got up before the sun rose the next morning to shower and eat breakfast at the buffet before getting on a tour bus at 7:30 AM to travel 30 minutes to the most famous site in China other than the Great Wall: the Terracotta Warriors. It was cruelly early, especially given our previous day of travel, but the tour company's strategy was to be there at the moment the ticket office opened in an effort to beat anticipated crowds.

We were greeted at the site by Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259 BC-210 BC), the self-proclaimed "First Emperor of China" who profoundly influenced Chinese history by unifying seven warring states into one nation for the first time. Qin is credited with building an immense defensive wall that was the precursor to the Great Wall, and it was by his order that the Terracotta Warriors were created. Also, "Qin" is pronounced "Chin," and is the foundation of the name "China." Those are three pretty significant legacies, right? Not bad for a guy with a really bad hairstyle:

Is this the same guy? He has the same wacky hairdo:

We passed this fur seller on our walk between the bus and the warriors. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't go over too well in the United States: