The Brown Fox Dynasty: Off a da’ Boat

8/7/15

Today we disembarked in Chongqing, China’s largest city at 30+ million people (holy shit!) but had very little chance to contemplate or experience that massive amount of people because we immediately headed to the airport to catch our flight to Xi’an (another small city of only about 7 million or so).

And let me tell you: Xi’an is AWESOME! This is the most impressive, most interesting city we’ve been in so far and it only took me the bus ride to the hotel to make that realization. I’m so bummed we only have 2 days here!

Pollution blocked sun

Smoggy view from our hotel

Wires reminiscent of Shanghai & Rio

Nuclear power plant - Nick now knows all about these!

Old building in front of new construction

Traditional architecture

Family scooter fun

No hands-free law ;)

Winner for most packed scooter

Xi’an was the epicenter of China since the 11^th century BCE! The oldest (out of 4) Chinese capitals, seat of the emperor for 13 dynasties (13!) and the starting point for the Silk Road. I am beyond fascinated by the massive amount of history in this city! (How massive, you ask? So much so that their subway system only has 2 lines. They stopped building it because they kept digging up ancient artifacts. They didn’t want to destroy any ancient relics, so they stopped its expansion.) Obviously, very little from those ancient millennia still remains, but compared to the boring, normal Western-style city of Shanghai, I was immediately captivated by the beauty and style of the historical buildings and ancient architecture that was still visible. Supposedly, the Weiyang Palace (which sadly, no longer exists), built in Xi’an around 200 BCE, was the largest palace ever built on Earth! According to Wikipedia, it was more than 6x the size of Beijing’s Forbidden City, or 11x the size of Vatican City! Through the 10th century, Xi’an itself was the largest city in the world. Can you imagine the size, the power, the money the Chinese empire held during that time?! The Han Dynasty and ancient feudal China was nothing to f*ck with.

Tribute to the emperor & his favorite concubine

Detail of sculpture

Tribute to Terra Cotta Warriors

The old fortifications, – city wall, watch towers, bell and drum towers – remnants from the 14^th century Ming Dynasty, still surround the city and I was crestfallen that we wouldn’t have time on the group tour to explore any of it. This is the biggest drawback to being on a group tour: we’re very limited in time to get from one place to another and squeeze in 3 two hour meals a day that we aren’t able to stop and explore much, let alone veer from the pre-determined stops. HUGE bummer!

Bell Tower

Bell Tower at night

Portcullis & moat

City Square with Bell Tower in the background

City Wall

But we still got to see some cool stuff; although I lament that they only give us 1-2 hours at each location, so you better walk fast and you better not try to read too much if you want to see it all. :P Our first stop in Xi’an was the Shaanxi Provincial History Museum. One of the coolest things on display was the “Lantian Man” skull (a subspecies of Homo erectus) that was found near Xi'an and dates back 500,000 years!