Chris’ Blog

Well, this update was a long time coming…in October of 2004 we made a trip to Xi’an, the ancient capital of China. We were able to visit with our friend, Derek, who had moved from Shanghai to Xi’an a few months earlier in order to teach American culture at a local university.

We began our journey at the Hong Qiao domestic airport, where since we arrived early, decided to have some breakfast. We asked at the information desk if there were any restaurants in the airport. We were told that there weren’t, so we headed outside to see what we could find. We walked away from the airport into one of the local neighbourhoods where we couldn’t see much that was appetising. Finally Christine asked a man if there was a KFC nearby. He said there was just a little further down. So we walked down an alley, under a bridge, and there was a McDonald’s…inside the airport. We enjoyed a healthy breakfast and while washing up I noticed that my engineering ring was missing! This is serious business because I can’t be an engineer without my ring. It’s what gives me my engineering powers. I looked in the sink and under the hand dryer to no avail. I decided that I had probably left it at home, but it was with a heavy heart that I departed the McDonald’s.

The flight was uneventful and we arrived safely at the Xi’an airport. The airport was a bit of a drive from outside the city so we took a bus to Xi’an, although we probably could have walked there in almost as much time. Apparantly the maximum velocity of the bus was well below standard highway speeds. On the way we passed through some towns. It was corn harvesting time, so there was corn layed out on the streets to dry. The area around Xi’an also has a lot of power plants.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel, located at the centre of the city. It had a great view of the bell tower. We called Derek and arranged to meet for dinner. When Derek arrived we walked over to the Muslim quarter of the city where we sampled some of the local cuisine. We had yangrou paomo which is mutton soup with pieces of bread broken up into tiny pieces and put into the soup. After supper we headed over to a grocery store and bought food for our trip to Huashan (Hua Mountain) the next day.

The next morning we were up at 6:00. The early bird get’s the worm, and if such a bird were foolish enough to argue with Christine about why worms might be desireable early in the morning, such a bird would be lucky to leave with his life. We met up with Derek and headed over to the bus station. It was a confusing place with buses going every direction and no obvious way to tell what was going where and when it was leaving. We wandered around aimlessly, providing some early morning entertainment for the local Chinese until finally some guy told us that this bus goes to Huashan. We said, “Okay!” and climbed onboard. Our bus departed at 8:00 and we soon discovered this was by no means an express bus, stopping in every village on and possible off the way. Things were relatively peaceful for the first 30 minutes until two guys that appeared to have been gampling together began arguing with each other. This involved a good deal of shouting and pointing fingers which lasted for about an hour until one of the men finally got off the bus. At 10:00 we were dropped off on the highway outside a village that supposedly would lead us to Huashan. We found a taxi and were able to tell him that we wanted to walk up Hushan and he drove us to the beginning of the trail at Yuquan temple.

Our mountain climbing adventure began at 10:15. The path was stone and was fairly easy going. We passed by some different buildings, including a small temple and a fish pond. The scenery was beautiful and we were enjoying ourselves. By 11:30 we had travelled four kilometres and were feeling pretty good about ourselves. The situation soon changed…

After the four kilometre mark, the grade of the path increased sharply and we found ourselves climbing up steep narrow stairs pulling ourselves up in some places by chains anchored to the rock. It is worth noting that while we were sporting backpacks, running shoes, and mostly cotton attire, many of our local hosts were wearing suits, dress shoes, imitation leather pants and some women were even wearing high heels.

As we got closer to the top, we began seeing locks attached to the chains that acted as guard rails. The closer to the top, the greater the concentration of locks. I guess they are for good luck or good relationships. Whatever their purpose, they were really neat.

On the way up we passed a guy taking all the reclying down. He was loaded down with several bags full of bottles. That didn’t look like fun.

We reached the summit at 2:00 pm and sat down to enjoy our lunch of apples, crackers, Happy Cow cheese, and pistachios. I think we may have also had some dried fruit. Everyone was pretty interested in what we were eating and one fellow even sat with us through our meal to observe our behaviour.

After lunch we climbed the final stairs to reach the actual peak of the mountain…where we found a shop selling “I Climbed Huashan” medals and engraved them with your name and the date. We purchased our well deserved medals and enjoyed the view.

After the strenuous hike up the mountain we decided to take the cable car down. On the way down, we chatted with a man about the differences between Huashan and Huangshan. He told us that Huangshan is more beautiful, but Huashan is more dangerous. Danger…that’s my middle name!

We got off the cable car and once again were in the situation of no idea where to go or what to do. We were ushered to a small bus with “Xi’an” in the window. We hopped on and waited for about 15 minutes with nothing happening. The bus seemed a little sketchy, so we bailed and flagged down a taxi. We told him we wanted to take the bus to Xi’an and he took us to a much bigger bus than the previous and so we were quite pleased with ourselves. We departed at 4:45 and the bus was packed to the gills. There were people standing in the aisle and sitting on top of each other. We enjoyed Chinese music blasted through the speakers for the trip home. Good times.

The next day was another early start, getting up at 6:30. After breakfast we met with Derek and a tour guide that would be showing us around for the day. We headed to Banpo Neolithic village. The village is 6000 years old, but currently under construction, so we couldn’t see too much. The original inhabitants of the village were part of a matriarchal society, so the punishment for being late for supper was death. The exhibits were mostly pieces of pottery that had been found, which I didn’t find too interesting, but our guide was telling us a bit about Chinese culture and how Chinese like to wear red when it is their year. She also said that it is bad luck to marry someone who is of the same year as you or to get married in your year. We told her that Christine and I are both snakes and were married in the year of the snake. She promptly informed us that nobody believes those things.

After the Banpo neolithic village it was off to the terra cotta (clay) warrior factory. This is where they make the terra cotta warrior replicas that are distributed all throughout China. We loaded up on Christmas presents while we were there. If you are related to us, then you likely received one that Christmas.

Our next stop was the tomb of Qin Shihuang. Qin Shihuang was the first emperor of China, around 2000 years ago. The location of his tomb was a secret and he had all the workers executed in an effort to keep the secret. It also turned out that the tomb was full of naturally occuring mercury that finished off the rest and, of course, makes it impossible to excavate the tomb. It looks like a big hill.

The highlight of our trip was the trip to the terra cotta warriors. We had already learned that the warriors were made to guard Qin Shihuang’s tomb. It is speculated that each terra cotta warrior is modeled after an actual soldier in Qin Shihuang’s army. The tour began with us being lead into a small circular building which turned out to be a standing theatre. The film was 360 degrees, so throughout the presentation we were spinning around like idiots, trying not to miss anything. The film was quite informative, showing Qin Shihuang conqueroring China and a reenactment of the making of the terra cotta warriors. The warriors were barried in the ground, near the tomb of Qin Shihuang. It wasn’t long after his death that the warriors were discovered and destroyed by the succeding conqueror. Then we saw how four farmers in the area had dug a well and pulled up a terra cotta warrior head. From there the government was notified and excavation begun. The warriors had been forgotten for almost 2000 years. The film finished off with a great shot of the local power plant stacks, and then it was off to see the warriors!

The terra cotta warriors were amazing. There were thousands barried in the ground. Almost each one had been shattered two thousand years earlier, so all have been restored by reassembling them. Most remain burried until restoration techinques improve so that the original colours can be seen. The warriors exist in two main parts. There is the large area with the infantry and then a smaller area full of officers. Incredible.

That evening Christine and I had pizza at one of the local retaurants. The pizza was bad and the drinks even worse. One of the main problems with pizza in China is that tomato sauce and ketchup translate to the same thing in Chinese. Well, this was one of the ketchup pizza varities. After dinner we returned to our hotel where Christine passed out and I watched “Epoch: Evolution”. It was pretty stupid, but it was in English.

Our final day was an easy one, with us getting up at 8:00. We had breakfast and then spent some time in the Muslim quarter honing our haggling skills. As we were packing to go I closed our suitcase and there behind it, right where I left it, was my engineering ring!

Below, you will find a sampling of some of the more humourous signs we encountered during our trip.