Xi'an (西安) - The Start And End Of The Silk Road
Posted On Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at at 1:48 AM by Alvin
After a relaxing Summer spent in HK packed with loads of swimming and Malls-exploring, we packed our bags and headed for the two central Chinese Provinces of Shaanxi (陝西 ) and Henan (河南).Of course, Xi'an (西安), now the Provincial capital of Shaanxi, was China's capital since the Qin Dynasty (秦朝) and had been known to the world as the start and end of the famous Silk Road. Xi'an was then known as Chang'an (長安) and was reputedly larger than Rome and had already a grid city plan with wide avenues to welcome the many visitors - it was truly a metropolis in its hey days where peoples from all over Asia and as far as India and Europe traded and mingled (even sharing a bottle or two of the Baiju 白酒, maybe).
We found Xi'an to be packed with historical sights and also an easy city to navigate in, because the excellent maintenance of the city walls helped us get our bearings. We visited the central Bell and Drum Towers (鐘樓, 鼓樓), The Great Goose Pagoda (大雁塔) at the southern end of the city, the Great Xi'an Mosque (清真大寺), walked the 14 km encircling city walls (古城牆 - a pretty tiring 3 hours job) and the extremely contents-rich Shaanxi Museum (陝西歷史博物館 - another exhausting 3 hours job), which housed numerous glorious copper, clay and iron artifacts from as far as 4,000 years ago from the pre-Qin dynasties of 商朝 and 周朝. And of course during our brief sojourn in Xi'an, we visted the much-anticipated Terracotta armies and figurines (兵馬俑). So much had been said about the Terracotta armies and figurines so I would spare the details here, other than to say that no matter how many times you have seen them in magazines and TV, nothing could beat the experience of going to the excavation sites and coming "face to face" with these charismatic ancient characters.
