Crazy Digest: Xian in 72 hours

Date of Travel: 24-26 June 2017

Day 3
Today is our final day in Xian. Our flight departs at 12:15am, so we have 15 hours to explore. We had pre-arranged a hotel car to bring us to the airport for RMB180, as we didn't want to take a non a/c taxi in a 45 minute car ride. So we booked one for 8:30pm. We walked to the Muslim Quarter to visit the Grand Mosque. Unfortunately, today was the 2nd day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri and there was a prayer ceremony going on at that morning. We declined to enter the mosque, and wandered around the shops instead.

Free public toilets outside Drum Tower. Not bad!

Follow here to the Grand Mosque

At 10am, shops aren't open yet

So spicy, how to eat?

"Snack Street" or Beiyuanmen Street

Was supposed to eat here, TripAdvisor highly recommended "Jia San Tang Bao Zi Guan"

Fried Pao

Another Xian delicacy, Rou Jia Mou = Pulled Lamb Burger

Plenty of things to eat at the Snack Street, but we ended up not trying anything. Guess what we had instead? McDonald's! But you know what, even McDonald's was too spicy! One bite of this chicken chop rice, and we had to stop eating. The spiciness of the sauce was OK. But the chicken was the killer. Wait 30 seconds after chewing the chicken, and it hits you deep down in your stomach. Bought another McChicken after that.

Back to hotel to shower and checkout and leave bags with the concierge. Now it's time for us to visit the Terracotta Army museum. At 1pm, we took a taxi to Xian Railway station (instead of Xian North Railway Station). When facing the station, head to the parking lot at the far right corner of the station to find buses heading to the Terracotta museum. There were people in blue uniform trying to get you to enter the Blue and Green buses, but we were advised by the hotel to only take the White buses. White buses are RMB7 per way, and I overheard blue/green buses are RMB10. I don't know what the difference is. Maybe Blue/Green will bring you elsewhere to shop first, or you go up and pay a fee, coming down, must pay another fee, who knows?! So we queued up under the hot sun for about 10 minutes, and got on the White bus. It took 1 hour to arrive the parking lot. From there, it was a 2km walk to the ticket counter for this Terracotta Army museum. 2km!! Once we got onto the grounds and got our tickets, there was a little golf buggy ride for RMB5, that was about 100m distance only.

No, no, no this is not the Terracotta Army. :)

Again, no clear signage on where is Pit 1, 2 or 3

Best view is at the front left and right coners of Pit 1

Towards the end of Pit 1, the restoration area.

You first need to find Pit 1, which is the most impressive, then find Pit 3, and finally Pit 2. It was like a sauna inside, with people jostling you from every side. It took me awhile to realize that I just needed to take a step back, and let the people rush away, and then I could appreciate the army for what it is. Each soldier wasn't assembled as we saw them. They lay in a clutter of dirt, and someone needs to try piece the puzzle together. Overall, I'm glad this is off my checklist. We braced ourselves for the 2km walk back to the bus under the hot sun, and thankfully our timing was just right for the White bus.

We were back at the Railway station by 5:30pm. Wanting to reward ourselves, guess where we went? Yup you got it right, back to Haidilao again!! We ordered a different set of items, and it seems like we must have covered the whole menu by now. Enough of Haidilao for the next 3 years! Hehehe

Today's Walking = 21,854 steps or 13.6km with 4 floors of stairs

Here's an interesting photo I snapped along the way, to end my writings on Xian.