Jul 11 2009

Train ticket to my next location

Category: Martin @ 23:07

Ticket from 西安 to 拉萨.

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Jul 11 2009

City Wall Bicycling

Category: Martin @ 08:55

Today I did the most touristy thing to do in Xi'an: Riding a bicycle around the 13.7 km long city walls.

The bell tower at night.


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Jul 10 2009

Xi'an clubbing

Category: Martin @ 17:02

Even though I had to dispense the cake I was carrying with me, It was good fun in the club afterwards.

 

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Jul 10 2009

The Terracotta Army

Category: Martin @ 08:04

About 40 km from Xi'an is the excavation site of the Terracotta Army. Each year 6 million people visit the largest on-site museum of China. The museum contains three large buildings (the main one above is 230m long) where the excavations are shown. Archeologists are on site and constantly discover new clay figures, reassemble them and put them on display (There are an estimated 6000 soldiers buried underground). The museum is part of the much larger mausoleum for Qin Sihuang the first emperor of China. The Terracotta Army was only discovered 1974 by a farmer who was digging for water. Now in his 70ies the farmer himself was in one of the adjacent buildings and signed my copy of a book about the site.

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Jul 9 2009

Arrival in Xi'an

Category: Martin @ 09:15

Today I flew right in the middle of China to the ancient capital city of Xi'an (formerly Chang'an). Xi'an is a bustling city with several millions of inhabitants and lots of construction going on in the outskirts. Inside the surrounding city walls the city kept its unique flair of mixing ancient with modern buildings. Depicted above is the Bell Tower in the very center of Xi'an.

View from the bell tower towards the south gate.

Xian contains a big muslim quarter. Although it doesn't look anything like it, but this here is inside the big mosque of Xi'an.


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