Sep 11: Xi'an

It is remarkable how different are all the cities we've been to. Hong Kong is ultra-urban, Guilin small -- and fairly touristy, Chengdu is cosmopolitan and self-content. Now we are in Xi'an. It is the first place we've been that feels sort of the way I imagined a Chinese city -- a real blend of the old and the new mixed together. For one thing, there is a decided absence of the Socialist Realist concrete-block-as-architecture school here. Second, and more importantly, it has left its old walls and pagodas intact, building up a bustling city around them.

Xi'an was the capital of both the Han and Tang dynasties, and it has that lovely feel of an old fortified city. This is the only city we budgeted only a single day for, thinking that our only focus was getting to see the terra cotta warriors -- and I'm sorry that we did. (And our hotel, cf the previous entry, is not exactly inspiring us to change our plans and stay here longer.)

But this is a city I would come back to and spend several days in. It is filled with museums of antiquities, cobble-stone roads, and scattered pagodas. There is a giant bell tower smack in the center of town, and a fortified wall surrounding what was the old city. This afternoon we went to what's called the Forest of Stelae -- a giant stone library of beautiful calligraphic works. Literally slabs of rocks, five to eight feet high, a foot thick, on which are carved poems, paintings, calligraphy primers, cures for stomach aches, and all of Confucius. The library was established in 1090, giving one the interesting chance to see what was au courant in museum displays at that point in time: apparently it's turtles all the way down -- each slab was positioned carefully on the back of a five-foot long stone turtle.

And, of course, we went to see the terra cotta warriors in the morning. Rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of life-sized statues, each with an individualized face, hairstyle, armor and weapon. Even more impressive than simply looking out over the army is the looking at the state it was found in. The bulk of the statues still lie in Humpty Dumpty piles, a head here, an arm there. Workers have spent the last twenty years putting together the jig saw puzzle of statues, and, while they are beginning to use computers to help, it's unlikely the task will be finished for another twenty.

It's all pretty amazing . . . but I have to admit the whole experience was greatly enhanced for me by the fact that as Eleni and I were waiting for the bus to go see the warriors, I heard a "Karen?!?" and there was Divya -- an Indian Melton Fellow -- and right behind her seven others, from India, Germany, and Chile, including Jan whom I traveled with last year in India.

Getting to spend the day with them made Xi'an all the more fun. . . though Eleni and I were exremely bitter to find that their hostel had the best view in town, looming right over the bell tower, offered free Internet access, and was far far cleaner than ours.

This realization made us briefly consider going for an actual hostel in Beijing -- but, no, we decided to keep our reservation at the lovely five-star Grand Hyatt instead. We can't wait.