smog is sooo in right now.

Xi'an is admittedly not quite what I imagined. I knew it was going to be small, especially in comparison to ginormous Shanghai... but I had expected a much more traditional-looking town, full of history and old architecture everywhere. Xi'an is really just your average emerging city. It's cramped with people, smoggy and full of malls and more KFCs that I care to count. There are some lovely patches of history scattered throughout the area though. Yesterday I went to the Muslim Quarter, which was a popular market area during the time of Marco Polo. Store signs were wooden and painted, and the buildings were dark and old with tiled, pointed roof tops. The activities in the streets felt old too- people selling dried fruits and nuts out of baskets, vendors yelling prices, the constant murmur of shoppers and rusty bicycle wheels whirling in the streets. I wandered there for a bit before walking further south to check out the Bell Tower and the City Wall. The Bell Tower is at the center of the city and today acts as a busy roundabout. What it is at the complete center of is a wall that surrounds the main part of the city. And around that is a park that, in addition to a roller rink, featured many hilarious safe sex ads.

I also found the loveliest street near the south east part of the wall called the Ancient Street. To get to it, you walk through an old gateway that must have been brightly colored in its heyday but has now faded with time, but it has lost none of its elegance. Once through the gateway, it's a different world, an old world. Even the air smelt old and the cobble stones under my feet kept echoing the countless steps that had walked there before me for years. The streets are lined with traditionally-built 2 or 3 story, narrow buildings. They have worn, wooden window panes, clay tiles that curve with the roofs, and hand painted store signs hanging above sagging doorways. It does have a run down look, but there's such a charm about it, like it has a secret to tell you, or some hidden treasure deep within the walls of the buildings. I spent a good 2 hours there, just walking around, trying to absorb the age around me while becoming more and more aware of my own youth.

Then today, I went to see the Terracotta Army with a very nice German guy that I met in the hostel. Rather than pay the extra 100 Yuan, we navigated the bus system ourselves, which ended up being very easy. (Travel note: Never completely trust what hostel workers tell you- in most cases they're just trying to make something seem much more difficult to do on your own so that you'll pay them extra to do it for you.) The Terracotta Army was so amazing. Here's a quick sketch on the background: It all started with a very, very paranoid emperor, Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China at around 200 BC. Before his death, he commanded the creation of an army of over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, all made completely out of terracotta, to scale and with intense detail (down to the hair and the ties in the clothing!!). In addition to all these warriors, he also commissioned figures of acrobats, attendants, musicians and others to be made. He wanted to be well prepared for his after life. There are three sites total and the first one discovered, which is also the largest, was found during the 70's when some local farmers wanted to dig a well there. Instead of water, they found an arm (I think?) of one of the warrior statues. Wild huh??! Can you imagine being that farmer? "Oh, hey, I'm thirsty and so are my crops, I'm gonna dig for a well riiiiiiiiiiiiiight... Here! Oh, what's that? An ARM?! Made of TERRA COTTA?! It looks so WARRIOR-like!" You'll have to excuse me for geeking out just now. I just visited the site today so it's history is still in my system.

And that's all for now! Time to sleep!