Liz's Xian Adventures

Today was our second day in Xi’an. As usual, we got up early, but today I got up extra early go on a hunt for “senior disco”. Since the retiring age is so young in China (from 50-60 depending on the job) many retirees enjoy working out to Chinese pop music in the local park, and since the park surrounds the mote and city wall of Xi’an, there were many types of early morning senior dancing and working-out to be seen. Instead of our costly gyms, the parks here actually have weather-proof, non-electrical work out equipment in the parks, and even at 6:30 am, it was bustling. There were also at least 10 ping pong tables, and lots of elderly men walking their birds. After breakfast, we got to see the terra cotta army, which was actually a series of 3 pits, with a total of 1,000 soldiers. To my surprise, the actual tomb of the emperor has not been unearthed. Our local guide explained that it’s because they do not want to destroy or ruin any of the tomb, and thus want to wait until they have better technology before excavation. I am not sure if that would happen in America, but it’s good to know that at least for the warriors, preserving history is important enough to wait. Later in the day we went to the mosque in the Muslim Market. It was great to see the mixture of cultures which had occurred because the beautiful mosque was clearly Islamic, but was very architecturally similar to many of the Chinese pagodas. At the end of our busy day, we even got to eat a “dumpling banquet” with 18 different types of dumplings ranging from cashew, to beef, to pumpkin, and while my table couldn’t finish it all, one student broke the previous record eating over 50 dumplings! After today, I’m really excited to see more of Xi’an.
Good night!
-Liz