The Journey Westward: Day 3 & 4

Day 3 (Sunday, September 28th, 2008)---After a good night's rest in a bed with a real mattress (my dorm mattress is practically a piece of plywood), I excitedly awoke and got ready for the day. As some of you may know, Xi'an is most famous for its collection of Terra Cotta soldiers. And today, we were going to see them...YAY!!! (If you don't know what the Terra Cotta soldiers, please, please Google them. There is actually quite an interesting story behind them). My classmates and I met for a "Western" breakfast and then quickly boarded the bus off on journey to the soldiers. We arrived at the Terra Cotta soldier museum and spent an hour or 2 looking at boring stuff that was found with the soldiers, like an umbrella stand and ancient shoes. Then it was onto the big show...THE SOLDIERS!!! It was absolutely breath-taking. We stepped into a huge room, and there before us were thousands of Terra Cotta soldiers...how astonishing! If you ever have the chance to go and see them, you should. I can't quite put into words how beautiful it all is at first. We spent a couple hours looking at the different Terra Cotta soldiers in the different rooms. There are actually 3 different rooms in which the soldiers are housed, instead of them all being in one room. This is because the soldiers have been left exactly where they were excavated. We left the Terra Cotta museum and headed back into Xi'an to go to the Great Mosque.

The Great Mosque is one of the oldest and most well known mosques in all of China. It was built during the Tang Dynasty (600s-700s AD) and is today one of the 3 main mosques that Chinese Muslims make pilgrimages to. The Great Mosque was beautiful. It was, at first, difficult to remember that the place was indeed a Muslim mosque seeing as how all the construction is done in a very Chinese style. It looked more like a Buddhist temple to me than a Muslim mosque. The Great Mosque was a series of buildings set around a central garden. It is probably the most peaceful and quiet place I've found in China yet. We walked around, looked at the buildings, and watched several Muslims reciting their prayers. However, that was about all the Great Mosque had to offer us; so after several minutes we decided we'd seen it all and headed into the streets of Xi'an for some bartering and eating. Bartering/bargaining is an absolute way of life in China. Other than in Western style shopping malls, bargaining isn't only encouraged but is a necessity (as I briefly explained in regards to the Silk Market). Chinese vendors set the prices of their items at about 4-5 times, sometimes as much as 10 times, more than what the product is actually worth, hoping that some unknowing tourist will stumble into their store/upon their kiosk and actually pay that price. But bargaining is tiring. Yelling at Chinese vendors while they throw fits and yell back can really take it out of a person. A couple hours of bargaining was enough for all of us, and we reconvened to head to the Big Goose Pagoda.

The Big Goose Pagoda...what a name!!! I can't remember the Chinese name, but the English name is a terrible translation of the actually Chinese characters. Anyway, we all went to the Big Goose Pagoda to see the largest water show in all of China. It was SOOO cool!!! Seriously, Disney and the Bellagio have a lot to learn from China. The water show was done in sync with several classic masterpieces. Not only was their water and music but also lights and fireworks. Xi'an's water show was so pretty, so fancy. I didn't expect this out of China. Our time at the Big Goose Pagoda was cut short by the fact that we needed to go catch a train to make our way to Jiayuguan...yes, another train ride...the bane of my existence. And so off we went to get on another China train for a 20 hour train ride...yes, 20 hours.

Day 4 (September 29th, 2008)---The majority of today was spent on a train, traveling from Xi'an to Jiayuguan. I nearly pulled my hair out. Just try to imagine living in a small box with 5 other people for 20 hours with nothing to do and loud Chinese chatterring all around. I have one word...TERRIBLE!!! When we finally arrived, Jiayuguan looked like the promised land to me. I had never seen such a beautiful city (although a couple hours after the train ride when I had recouped I realized Jiayuguan was a terribly boring and dirty city. It ended up being my least favorite city on the whole trip). We checked into our 4-star hotel, which I would say is the equivalent of maybe a 2-star hotel in the States, and then we ate. After showering and dinner, we all decided that we had to get out and could no longer sit around after the long train ride. So we headed into the city to find some fun. However, we quickly discovered that Jiayuguan didn't really have much to offer. The population of Jiayuguan is 150,000, super small by Chinese standards. So there wasn't much night life, and after an hour or 2 of wondering we wound up back at our hotel for some sleep.