Beijing to Xi'an

Today we flew from Beijing to Xi’an and after my mom spent a good five hours stressing about getting the suitcases down to the right weight, it ended up being a complete non-issue. Much like American airlines they weighed the suitcase and moved on. And they didn’t even check the weight of the carry-on. That would’ve been nice to know ahead of time since then I wouldn’t have left a huge chunk of my things back at the hotel for my dad to schlep from one hotel to the next. And I’d have preferred to have those things in my possession since they will be stored at the hotel while my dad goes on his side trip. Oh well, you live you learn. More than anything I would’ve paid money to know in advance given the amount of strife it caused between me and my mom. She tends to treat me like I’m an irresponsible 5 year-old who is incapable of handling anything on her own instead of the 27 year-old grown adult that I am. Well our driver picked us up at the hotel and made sure we got our tickets and didn’t leave us until the security line. He even walked right past the sign that said “passengers only” and proceeded to walk up to the x-ray machine. Our flight was rather uneventful and only lasted about two hours which compared to the 11 hour flight felt like nothing. The lunch served was questionable, it consisted of soggy breaded circles of what I think was meat. It sort of tasted like seafood but I wasn’t willing to go past two nibbles. I ended up eating the rice and bun that they served as sides to the mystery meat. The landing was also a little jarring, I thought the front of the plane might fall off the noise was so loud but like I said, uneventful. We collected our baggage and were met by Angie, our tour guide for the next few days.

We stopped at the Yangling Mausoleum, which is a relatively new museum that opened just ten years ago. The museum is on the site of the tomb of Emperor Jingdi who was the fourth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty. The site contains many mini-terra cotta soldiers that mimic the huge life-size soldiers of the mausoleum of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. The museum gave some insight into how and why these funerary arts were created and the purpose. I’m interested to see how they differ from the Terra Cotta Warriors. Our tour guide explained that the reason the terra cotta soldiers at this tomb are so small is that the emperor didn’t want to go overboard and spend too much money. In comparison the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty wanted to show his great power and wealth by creating such a huge army.

After the Yangling Mausoleum we headed to our hotel to check-in and get settled. We took an hour break and then headed back out to the Xi’an City Wall. The city has since spread well beyond the city wall but it is one of the oldest and best preserved in China. It was originally constructed in 194 BC to serve as protection against invading armies that might try to take over the city. Our travel agent had suggested we take a bike ride on the top of the wall so once there we found the bike rental place and our tour guide sent us off. The bikes looked about 30 years old but the seat was comfortable enough and as long as I didn’t go too fast the breaks held up. It was definitely entertaining to see my mom riding a bike and I was even more amused when she kept getting off her bike to walk up and down the small ramps.  The whole wall takes an hour and half to complete but we were moving so slowly we only made it a little over a quarter of the way. There are four gates that face the north, south, east and west. We started at the south gate and only made it to just beyond the west gate before we turned around.

By the time we got back I was again sweating profusely. My shorts were sticking to me and when I went to get money for a water I found it was damp. After leaving the wall we then went to a restaurant that specializes in hot pots. Given my last experience I had little hope for assuaging my hunger but thought I’d give it another try. I was very pleasantly surprised. This time around the food was a little more familiar and Angie showed us how to make a sauce using different ingredients. After eating hot pots twice I’m convinced that the sauce is what makes or breaks it. This time around I had a sauce exactly tailored to my liking and I ate twice what I ate the first time around.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel where my mom and I had another debacle over whether the TV would be turned on or not. Currently I’m watching ‘Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ starring my favorite actor, Johnny Depp, and I can’t hear anything because every time my mom heard the TV she’d shift around which means, “I’m annoyed you have the TV on and I’m going to shift around so you know I’m still up.” Sigh. The battle continues and on future trips I will definitely pay for a separate room. It’s worth the cost to have peace!