Our first goal today was to walk, bike or ride the City Wall of Xi'an. This is the ancient capitol of China. Lots of history to be learned in this city. It has a population of 8,000,000 and is considered a 'medium sized' city. There are LOTS of people in China. This is the only in tact complete City Wall in China. It measures 8 miles around the top. That is like driving around Mackinac Island.
You can see the gate in the distance on the first picture. You can see the second gate in the second picture. In between the two gates is a space which is now used for tour buses to park. In the ancient days this open space between gates would have trapped those enemies able to get through the first gate and arrows and hot oil would rain down on them in this space.
Of course, there were steps to climb to get to the top!
Our options were to walk on our own or with the tour guide, rent and ride a bicycle, or purchase space on a golf cart vehicle that helps 3 rows of seats for people. Claude and I opted to stroll as far as we could in the time given us allowing time to return to catch our tour bus. We were cautioned against riding a tandem bike but several in our group opted to give it a try. This is Chelsea and Miles. They have been married about a year and a half. He is very tall and this is accented by the fact that Chelsea comes up to about his waist. I would have loved watching them ride around the wall. They actually made it all the way around the eight miles. It seems those who rode bicycles has a great time. There were three single girls traveling together. One of them had their bike stolen when they paused to take pictures. They ended up walking very quickly around the rest of the wall. Alan had to rescue them. It was a topic of fun the rest of our trip. The ones who took the golf cart drive were told they were going all the way around the wall. This did not happen and they were no allowed to pause to take pictures. Didn't find one of them that enjoyed the golf cart ride, so we can't recommend that. Claude and I were very happy with our choice to walk on our own.
Here are pictures of Claude and my walk. We made it to one corner and then part way down the next side. Then we retraced our steps and took time to explore the gates where we entered before going back to the bus. We can see Claude pretending to be an archer, the people exercising by dancing outside the wall, Claude standing as guard at a guard station, Claude and Sandi at the corner guard station, the moat and the newer buildings outside the City Wall of Xi'an at the corner, the contrast between Xi'an outside the wall and old Xi'an inside the City Wall, the curve of the City Wall on the inside of the wall at the corner, and a Chinese couple looking over the wall and enjoying their heritage. My only regret doing this was missing the 'turtle gate'. Each gate is named after and animal. I am a turtle loving girl and would have enjoyed seeing that. It really would have looked like what we saw but some of the ornaments on the gate building would have been turtles.
We walked in, around and through as much as we could of the gate towers. We learned that the corners of these and other official buildings were built with mythical creatures on the corners. The number of creatures told you the rank of the official working and/or living there. The Emporer would have 9 of these creatures on his buildings in the Forbidden City. All other people had some number less that 9. This gate building had 5 mythical creatures. The one on the end doesn't count. This means he was a medium ranked official.
A couple were having wedding pictures taken. This was not the wedding, just the official pictures. How fun!
As we drove to the Little Wild Goose Pagoda, we passed this interesting bit of architecture. They think outside the box on a lot of the newer buildings.
Little Wild Goose Pagoda would start with a class in Chinese Calligraphy. Yeah!! Love calligraphy and was very excited about this opportunity. We learned there are over 5,000 characters to learn in China compared to the 26 letters of our alphabet. The first part of the character tells the main word and the other parts of the character explain the word giving you something like a hieroglyphic picture. Kids start to learn this at a very young age and many can't read a newspaper until they are in their teens. This is not an easy language to learn. We each were given a piece of rice paper, brush and ink and, after careful instruction we all painted the same character. Then we let loose in the store to purchase if we wanted. They had some blanks painted with a flower. You could have something put on it in Chinese Calligraphy. We purchased one for our home that says Claude and Sandi Christensen.
Outside, Alan was entertaining a few kids with his balloons. Please note how he rubs his fingers together at the parents indicating they should make a donation to his cause. This is only for fun and everyone always laughs.
This is a cherry blossom.
The Little Wild Goose Pagoda was commissioned to be built by the Dragon Queen. She was the last Empress of China. Not very well liked because she sought power and manipulated people and had some killed to achieve her goals. I read a book about her written by Pearl Buck before we went to China. It was interesting to see things that were done during her reign. This pagoda was struck by lightning and split all the way down the middle. It has been reinforced with steel on the interior. The second picture has an ugly tree at the very bottom of the picture. That tree is called Dragon Fingers. It just hasn't leafed out in the picture showing why it has the name Dragon Fingers. It seems appropriate to be planted in front of the pagoda the Dragon Queen commissioned. Again, this was to store sacred text.
I found my hubby sitting by a bamboo tree. How appropriate. In China, the bamboo represents man because it is strong.
The park area at the Little Wild Goose Pagoda is where people go to feed the fish.
Claude ringing the bell.
This is the Pagoda Tree. It is over 1,300 years old.
These are carved steps to get on/off horses and horse hitches.
This just might be Chinese graffiti. There is a stand of bamboo trees and the ones along the edge have Chinese characters carved in them.
We would find the bell tower and the drum tower. Every major city has a bell tower and a drum tower. They were used to announce the time during the day and the opening and closing of the city gates. The bell tower is the first picture. The drum tower is the second picture. This building actually houses the largest drum in any drum tower in China.
The bus left us off at the end of the Muslim Quarter. Our guide would walk us to the other end, identify places we might find something to eat, and leave us to stroll back with instruction not to eat anything on the street and to only drink bottled water. Hmmmm...We strolled back but found this area just not that fun. Can you find the pig hanging to be used in the food booth? Alan managed to photo bomb the police taking their picture.
In the evening we walked past the Large Goose Pagoda to a park area. The seniors were dancing for exercise. We watched them until time for the Water & Light Show. This is the largest Water & Light Show in Asia. Very nice. Felt like we were in Las Vegas watching the water and music show at the Bellagio.
Worn out and ready for rest. Good day.
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