An Excellent Vaca-Xi'an

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AN EXCELLENT VACA-XI'AN

By Viviana Santos

My time in China is quickly coming to an end and the thought of going back to university is giving me this urgent feeling to travel around Asia as much as I can (thanks Mom & Dad).

The first trip organized was Henan Province. Starting our trip at 3am, we arrived at the Xi’an airport where Mary (our tourist guide) was waiting for us to get us started right away. Our first stop was approximately 10 minutes away from the airport. It was a small version of the Terra-Cota Warriors, the Han Yang Ling Museum; this is the place for a mausoleum

made for an emperor and his empress dating back to 188 BC. Surrounding the emperor’s graveyard there are 86 burial pits, 21 are open for visitors. The pits are filled with the emperor’s court, servant, eunuchs, concubines, warriors, tailors, even domesticated animals, all of them miniatures.

We then went to visit the BanPo Neolithic Village, a 6000-year-old village located in the city, considered one of the oldest archeological finds in China. Open to the public in 1958, it has two halls; the first, an

exhibition hall that displays weapons, urns and plates that gives you a perspective of how they were living in that time period. The other hall was mainly the excavation place where they found remains of the houses the people were living in, as well as storage hole, fireplace, tombs and some skeletons. Depending on how they were buried, Mary told us, it tells a little back story of who they were, 4 of them were very carelessly buried, meaning they may have been thieves.

Having had a very early and tiring morning

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we succumbed to hunger at 12pm and we ate dumplings in a local restaurant located in front of the main entrance of the Village. We then drove a short distance to the see the highly anticipated Terra- Cotta Army, also now as the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. It’s really overwhelming to be in the presence of such a majestic site. Supposedly not two warriors have the same face, they were sculpted after every real individual. The first pit was the most impressive and large, showcasing the warriors and horses in the best state. The second, showed some faceless generals, which enemies came and cut their face off, so they were unable to resurrect in the afterlife.

an impressive contrast to the Chinese bronze, jade and ceramic relics. We headed to the Muslim Quarter, a part of the city filled with small shops that sell everything, from fake luxury bags to typical Chinese souvenirs and street food. Inside, was the Great Mosque of Xi’an, this was only for men to pray in, and is very old, dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The final day in Xi’an we went to the Mount Hua. There are different routes you can take. Because of weather conditions and as a recommendation of our new tour guide,

we climbed the shortest and most touristic one, the North Route. We reach the North Summit and we tirelessly climbed the stairs to head to the West Peak, but policemen and our tiredness made us stop. Here, you have the chance to either climb two hours the whole North Mountain or take a cable car. This mountain is famous for its glass floors and sky ladder, which consists of very steep stairs carved into some rocks.

The next day we took the subway to catch the fast train to our second destination, Luoyang. After a two-hour trip we arrived

The next day we were accompanied by the lovely Jenny, who first took us to Xi’an City Wall. It’s 14 km long and it’s considered one of the oldest, largest and best preserved Chinese City Wall. Along the top of the wall is a walkway with a lot of watchtowers, corner and gate towers. Here you have the option of renting a bicycle which you can ride around, just keep in mind the Wall is divided in 4 sections (North, South, West and East).

After lunch, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum which is considered one of the first largest museums with modern facility in China. They had a temporary exhibition of the Hungarian Aristocratic Society, which was

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and Tim, our new tour guide, greeted us. We took a short ride from the train station to see the Longmen Grottoes. It is a truly beautiful example of art. There are thousands of Buddha statues carved inside the rock which date back to as early as 493 BC. You could see some Buddha’s had their faces cut off, Tim explained it was because of a Revolution where the president wanted to erase any sign of religion and impose Communism to be followed.

That afternoon, we left to the Old Town where the entrance is the Lijing Gate, an old architecture structure, which makes a majestic entrance. Inside, there is a narrow street that is full of street food and Chinese souvenirs shops, so you can see people working everywhere either painting or cooking, the typical tables and chairs outside the small restaurants are not missing.

We embarked on a two-hour bus ride and arrived to the Shaolin Monastery. This place is known as one of the four holy Buddhism Temples of China. It's the first temple that institutionalized Kung Fu, so they also have six free daily shows where some of the students showcase their Kung Fu abilities, which was impressive to say the least. It also has a Pagoda Forest, which are tombs in where past monks have been buried. It was incredible to see dents in some of the trees where they practiced their finger strikes.

That evening, we went to a show called Shaolin Zen Music Ritual. It was impressive to watch, there were up to 100 actors on stage at once, small groups doing different things, at one-point dozens of goats appeared on one side of the big stage and disappeared from the other. If you get the chance check it out, it's not cheap but is so worth it.

Our last day at Zhengzhou it was raining, so our options were limited. We went to Henan Museum that showcased various cultural relic treasures, mostly pottery and porcelain. It was the Dragon Boat Festival, so we were lucky enough that the music show which the museum was showing, was free (although on normal days the show is only 10 Yuan). The museum also had a temporary exhibition of more modern art that varied from beautifully painted vases, to hand and machine knitted pictures and screen painting prints.

day before heading to the airport for our flight back to Hangzhou.

Overall, I have some recommendations you could bare in mind: - If you arrive to a touristic place where you know you are going to walk a lot to even reach the actual attraction, always pay for the electric car. This way you will save all your energy to explore the site, also most of the times it’s not that expensive, maximum it would cost 20 Yuan. -Contact Mary and or Tim if you are ever in Xi’an and Luoyang/ Zhengzhou respectively, they're great people and would make your trip more pleasant and informative.

Mary (Xi’an) E-mail: maryguide@yeah.net Phone: 187 0684-8837 WeChat QR Code:

Tim (Zhengzhou and Luoyang) E-mail: traveller.chn@hotmail.com Phone: 137 0087-1940 WeChat QR Code:

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After ending our trip running through the streets of Zhengzhou after dinner, we had a lazy morning the next