Towers of Xi'an

Xi'an has towers that provide landmarks in the middle of its walls. You've seen the Bell Tower before from my first entry about Xi'an
And there's also its sister tower, the Drum Tower.
Today we decided to visit both towers.

The Drum Tower is full of drums! For a small donation you can even bang the giant drum.
The roof features a bunch of cool details
And the top balcony offers great views of the city below
Inside the tower is an exhibit on, what else, drums!
I really wanted to bang on that one
The next stop was the Bell tower which has, you guessed it, a big bell!
You could bang the bell for a small donation, we didn't. Inside the tower was an exhibit on pottery and one on furniture (no pictures allowed for the furniture!)
Apparently, the Chinese invented the chairs. There were early model chairs on display. Mildly interesting would be an overstatement.

The views and architecture of the building itself were the real attraction...
The next stop on our daily visit to the city core's sights was the small goose pagoda where we climbed 14 (or was it 15?) of these narrowing and uneven staircases
to make it to the broken top floor
where we got some pretty amazing views

We wandered the rest of the grounds
Where I was able to bang this drum for a donation half of what was required at the bell tower, what a deal!
The bell is rumored to resound for 5km!

Admission to the grounds also includes the Xi'an museum
We visited a few exhibits about pottery
Buddhas
Calligraphy
and Chinese paintings
The highlight of the museum is surely the grounds where beautiful picture opportunities abound
Next, we made our way to Tang Dynasty Xi'an which is a fancy restaurant that offers a show after dinner (we didn't go to the show!) The restaurant looks really good and lots of attention on the details from the table centerpriece
to the fake gold walls
and matching plates and bowls
I'm not sure what parts of the chicken was floating in my chicken coconut soup but it tasted all right
The tofu and seafood in a soupy sauce were really really delicious
So was this bbq pork in honey
These noodles with beef were also pretty good
And this chicken drumstick stuffed with shrimps were awesome!
And lots of fruits for dessert, yummy!
After dinner, we made our way to the big goose pagoda
Where we watched was is reputedly the largest musical fountain in Asia (how many are there?)
The show was pretty cool but a bit underwhelming. It sounds cooler on paper I guess. We wandered around and found some pretty creepy sculptures depicting scenes of the every day life of regular Chinese
The whole area felt pretty festive with carnival like games for the foolish (or confident)
It's a beautiful area to spend a lazy evening
Tomorrow is a travel day to Beijing. I can't wait to see the capital!!!

Archaeology day

Monday in Xi'an was a day full of archaeology. After a cool run to start the day, we headed on a guided tour of Xi'an most famous archaeological sites.

First stop was the Banpo museum where we learned about this matriarchal society that used to live in the area.
We learned all kinds of interesting things about their culture and saw some artefacts such as pottery and human remains
As well as reproductions of the village
And excavated foundations from original houses
After learning about the Banpo, we started out journey to the Terracotta warriors. The Terracotta warriors are a big draw for tourists in Xi'an so they milk the phenomenon accordingly. Look at this statue in the middle of a roundabout
The next stop on our itinerary was a factory of Terra Cotta warriors where we learned about how they are made.
And were given an opportunity to buy warrior replicas of all sizes
We then went to a disney like hall where they reproduced the tomb of the second emperor (not sure there is a link with the warriors but it's nearby)
And after a group tour style lunch, we finally reached the exciting destination, the excavation site of the warriors
You really have to be there to appreciate the scale of the project that the emperor undertook. The area is vast and buildings have been built over the finds to protect them. Once inside, we saw all kinds of interesting information about the warriors
Apparently, this knealing archer is the shape of the map of the province if you look at him a certain way
The emperor even built a command HQ where Terra Cotta generals could direct the Terra Cotta troops. I think the emperor was a little bit crazy.
We finally saw the main hall where the warriors are being dug out. They estimate a total of 6,000 warriors between the different sites but this one is by far the largest
It's really impressive.
They also have other China odds and ends in the museum. This olympic flame was interesting for me
On the way back to town, we stopped at this hot spring where we could wash our hands in the supposedly healthy water.
And we topped the day off with a delicious dinner in a HongKong style restaurant
And a visit to the night market where we bought a bunch of stuff we didn't need (those Chinese sales person are very good!) Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the night market.