Xian

Saturday morning we were up early and on the mini bus, with our driver and Amy’s cousin Amanda. After a roadside stop to pick up Mr Lee’s (driver) wife we were on the open road and headed about 500km south. It was a cloudy, wet day so much of the 6 hour drive there was little to see. Then when we reached Xian, it took a long time as nobody had printed out hotel details or directions!

We had hoped since we were driving all this way we might get to stop in a small village for a bit of culture and lunch. Due to being on major highways the whole way and the poor weather we did not stop. After checking into the hotel we all met in the lobby at 5pm for dinner. The meal that we ate, won’t sound particularly interesting, but Christine has said it’s possibly her favourite Asian dish, up there with peking duck, char kay tow and green thai curry!
I can’t remember the name of the dish or the restaurant, but I will chase it up with Amy or Amanda. We have called the dish ‘soggy bread soup’! Yes, how good does that sound! We started with large empty soup bowls on the table. They then provide half cooked bread which was a bit like pita bread. This bread then needs to be torn into tiny pieces and put in the empty bowl. The waitress then takes your order of the type of soup you would like, chicken beef or lamb. After taking the order they take the bowls with the bread back to the kitchen and pour in the soup which is like broth with noodles and vegetables. This is the famous dish from Xian, and while it doesn’t sound great it was amazing!
After dinner the girls wanted to go window shopping, which I thought meant we would go for a nice after dinner walk along the OUTSIDE of the shops. How wrong I was! We ended up in the shops of course, and Maree was buying tops, skirts and handbags… We didn’t actually walk far!

There is one reason we came to Xian and that is the Terracotta Warriors. Sunday morning was cloudy when we met at 8.30am. The warriors were actually about an hour out of Xian which we did not realize, so we were very lucky to have a driver. The grounds are some very nice Chinese gardens. The actual warriors are in 3 pits, all enclosed in big tin sheds. The first was the most impressive, 2000 statues of warriors have been dug up, with an estimated 6000 still buried waiting to be excavated. The detail is amazing, apparently each has individual facial features. They are all standing in military formation with the different ranked officers in different uniforms.
The third pit (which we saw second), was smaller but again had numerous warriors in various states of excavation. The second pit only had 5 warriors dug up. Apparently, when they were discovered they were bright colours but within a month the colour faded, so they have stopped digging for the time being. There was also a display of the bronze chariot and a jade shop to have a look at. The warriors were Christine’s favourite touristy thing that we have done in China.

After lunch, we had soup similar to last night, but it wasn’t as good, possibly because we are 1 hour from Xian at a tourist attraction. We then headed to a different temple, which had not been opened. It also had nice gardens, bamboo wall and stairs to the top of the temple. The clouds meant that we didn’t get the nice view. The guide was really good and told us stories of humans and animals being sacrificed, buried treasure and mercury in the soil to protect the emperor. It was nice to go here, it was a bit less touristy and we had a lot of fun with Mr Lee, his wife and Amanda.
It was here that we (Amanda in particular) found the stalls selling sweet potatoes cooked on hot coals to be funny. As you would walk past they would say hello and offer a roast potato. Amanda found this funny as it sounded like they were saying “Hello Potato”, as you would say “Hello Christine”! This became a running joke for the rest of the trip.
For dinner tonight we headed to a Korean restaurant, one of Amanda’s favourite’s. The food was nice and a bit different to what we had been having the past few weeks. I bought some beers to drink with Mr Lee and Amanda to say thanks and farewell, they were leaving early the next morning.

Monday morning everyone went their own way, Mr Lee and Amanda drove back to Zheng Zhou early, Maree had an early flight via Korea to Melbourne. Our flight was a bit later so we had a chance to walk the main street of Xian, see some of the city wall and the Bell Tower. Had a look in a few of the shops and bought pork buns on the side of the street (and they were good!).
We had been told that we had to be at the airport 3 hours early, as China to Hong Kong (which is part of China), is treated as an international flight! When we got there we found out we had to wait, without luggage, until 90 minutes before the flight to check in. Then in the mean time our flight was delayed for another 2 hours so we ended up having a lot of time to kill sitting around the airport!

When we finally arrived in Hong Kong, we took the train to the city where our good friend Chung Sze met us at the station and took us to our accommodation. A spare room in her friends place, in the hills on Hong Kong Island, up on the 40th floor. It was a great location. We went for a walk to get some dinner, after a long day, and then a beer for a catch up.