Highlights from Monday, March 21

Another day come and gone in China!  Each day I feel like I am processing so much as we go through the day that it is really hard to sit down and summarize it after the day is done.  And actually, again last night we were so tired at the end of the day that I just skipped blogging until the next morning (Tuesday for us!)  Luckily, with the time delay for everyone back home, I can do a post the next morning and it is still the same day it all happened for you!  (Except this time - I didn't finish in the morning before we had to leave!  So now you've all been waiting for us to get this done!  And here, it's already Tuesday night, so I have another whole day to do!)  

Monday was our second day sightseeing in Xi'an.  We went to 3 main places:  the Wild Goose Pagoda, the muslim street market, and the Old City Wall.  The Wild Goose Pagoda is basically another Buddhist location, not really a temple, but more like a shrine.  It is a place honoring Master Xuanzang (pronounced Shin-Zhan), a man who made a pilgrimage from China to India and back, who brought many Buddhist scriptures back to China and translated them.  In doing so, he started the Buddhist movement in China, and this remains the most popular religion in China now.  Orignally, this structure was built by this man to house the scriptures and Buddhas that he brought back to China with him.  Those have apparently all been moved to be housed in other locations now, but this Pagoda and the surrounding area are still visited by Buddhists as a place of worship.

Entering into the main courtyard of the Pagoda.  The pagoda itself is the tall tiered building.

After you cross that large courtyard, you come to these steps that lead up to the pagoda.  The smoke is from incense burning.

Right in front of the building at the top of the steps.  This building houses several buddhas.  As you can see there are kneeling pads where people kneel with their incense.

This man is praying to buddha.  He has incense so that buddha can smell the incense and know that it is this man's prayer that he should listen to.

In a separate building from the one above, these women are praying to the wealth buddha.

A view from a different angle.  The building on the left is the one pictured above with the buddhas in it.

A view of the courtyard area

Some other small buildings around the courtyard

A statue of Xuanzang with the Pagoda in the distance

Near the area of the Wild Goose Pagoda is a big fountain.  It plays music at certain times of day and has the fountains timed with the music.  The funny thing that made us laugh about this was some of the music that they chose to accompany the fountains with the Chinese Pagoda in the background.  When we first walked up it was some classical Chinese music - very appropriate to the atmosphere.  Then as we watched longer some humorous choices came on like the Washington Post March and the William Tell Overture.  Not exactly what you would think of as fitting with a Chinese Pagoda in the background!

The fountain behind the pagoda is synchronized to music.

It was strange to be in the heart of China and hearing the "Washington Post March" over the loudspeakers.

You can walk out in the walkways in the middle of the fountain and not get wet

Some photos from our brave ethnic lunch - a hot pot.  It tasted good, but to be honest neither of us felt really great later that day.

For lunch we tried a traditional Xi'an meal.  The hot pot works much the same as fondue(only with chopsticks).

I still haven't gotten the hang of chopsticks yet.  Not for lack of trying, I just can't get my fingers to make them work!  At this point, I've started carrying a fork in my bag.

After lunch, we moved on to the Muslim street market.  Basically a shopping market where you make bargains with the vendors.  We really aren't huge tourist shoppers, especially when the shop owners get in your face and say, "YOU NEED A PURSE LADY?  YOU NEED A SCARF?  FOR YOU...SPECIAL PRICE!!"  Something about that just makes us walk quickly AWAY from that shop.  So it didn't take us long to be done at this market - we surprised our guide with how fast we were ready to leave.  She said they plan 3 hours for people in this place.  We were done in 1 at the most.  :)

A view down one of the streets

Shop after shop after shop.  They sell everything from wall hangings to belts to president Obama shirts wearing a communist hat.  And watch out - Bikes and carts of all kinds will force their way down this little walkway!

Moving right along, next we went to the Old City Wall.  Think Jericho - large wall all the way around the center part of the city with four gates, one on each wall - north, south, east and west.  This was actually really neat to see, although we didn't stay here all that long either because it was so cold and rainy. 

This is one of the entrances to the inner city.  The city wall is about as thick as a small bus is long.  And check out those doors!

Stairs to the top of the wall.

One of the watchtowers on top of the wall.

As you can see the wall is very thick on top.  You can rent a bike and ride around the wall; this takes about an hour to complete the whole length of the wall.

This is an area of the wall that has two gates.  They call it the trap area.  If an invading army breaks through the first gate, they would then have to break through the second gate, but they are surrounded from above on all sides.

In the end, our sightseeing day ended a bit early - around 4pm I think.  Then we were on our own for dinner, which we basically skipped because by then neither of us were feeling all that great.  (Drat that hot pot for lunch!)  We laid around the room all evening, napped on and off, watched annoying Chinese TV, and made up pretend lines to go with the Chinese shows.  All that free time and yet too tired to blog!

So here's our top 3 things we were thankful for today...

1.  For travel toilet paper rolls - the little Charmin-to-go packs that are so hard to find at home.  So glad we finally found them at Meijer!  Why?  Toilet paper is scarce here, let's just leave it at that!

2.  For blue skies back home with no pollution cloud

3.  That our girls are in such good and trustworthy hands back at home with Nana and Papa