Xi-an

bell-tower
Originally uploaded by Wasting Moments.

Xi-an has probalby been the highlight of my trip thus far. This is surprising given that it was added as a side excursion, the main purpose of which was to see the Army of Terra-cotta Warriors. To start with, Xi-an is much more in line with my preconceptions of what a major metropolis should be like. Perhaps it's more the result of the national holiday coming to an end here, and things getting ready to settle down again, but the scale of Beijing and Shanghai while I was there was just far too much for me to comprehend. The culture and language barriers are enought to make it really hard to find the proper context for the things I'm experiencing, but the intensity of activity in both those places added to the disorientation. I'll find out better when I get back to Shanghai during a more normal weekend whether my experiences were the result of the holiday or the fact that both cities are twice the size of NYC.

But, yes, back to Xi-an. For starters, it's one of the few cities in China that has a City Wall still extant (insert crass South Park references here). My hotel is right accross the street from the Bell Tower (shown here), and a bit up the road is the Drum Tower. Actually, looking more closely at the picture, I think this may be the drum tower. During the Ming Dynasty, in the 14th - 17th Century, the Bell was rung to mark the opening of the city gates, and the drum was sounded to signify their closing. Similarly, there is a Bell and a Drum tower in the Dayan Ta (Big Goose Pagoda), which was the first stop on today's tour, although they served slightly different purposes. The bell told the monks that the workday was to begin, while the drum signified it's end. As a side note, the Big Goose Pagoda was originally built to house the scriptures brought back from india by the monk featured in the story "Westward Journey", also sometimes called "The Monkey King". Read this back in a lit course in Alaska, and remeber it being a great book.