Did I say how vast and new the Xi'an train station
is? Something like 8 tracks -- building
looked more like an airport terminal than a train station. MUCH bigger than the West Beijing station
we'd departed from. Not as many stores,
however, as the train stations I remember in Tokyo and Kyoto -- I remember all
kinds of fresh food to take on the trains, and we didn't see that here.
And then you walk maybe 1/2 mile across a huge plaza
before being able to get to a taxi or bus.
Maybe for security? Anyway, I
meditated on why I'd brought so much stuff with me.
The Grand Noble Hotel in Xi'an is definitely a step up
from the hotel we stayed at in Beijing.
Amazing variety in the breakfast buffet -- all kinds of buns, boiled
noodles, rice, preserved veggies, breads, eggs.
Overpriced coffee bar in the lobby.
I wondered what Barbara A. (IPad keeps autocorrecting her name), who
taught here in the early 1980's, would think to see malls and Starbucks all
around.
Terra cotta warriors complex is also huge. Huge complex of restaurants (including
Starbucks and Hagen Dasz) outside. Huge
stone buildings around the pits where the warriors were found, and another for
two sets of bronze horses and chariots that were found 1/2 mile off. We started with the chariots, and worked back
to pit 1, which is the largest. The pit where
we started still had the structures of wood and clay that had held the figures. The figures themselves are terribly
impressive (I posted examples on Facebook & WeChat). Real power -- and then the sight of
literally 10's of 1000s of them. All
this by the first Qin emperor, around 200 CE.
(The one who also started the Great Wall).
Of course, then there were also kiosks in the main
exhibition buildings where you could pose in front of replica warriors, or
leave photos and have a warrior custom made with your face.
After a few hours, I started looking more at the crowds
thronging through the exhibition halls -- MANY selfie sticks-- and trying to
take pix of the people looking at the warriors rather than the warriors
themselves.
After that we made our way back to the bus, and were
taken to some kind of commercial workshop where we could see a local sculptor
fashioning the custom-commissioned terra cotta warrior heads -- a sales lady
lectured us on how the terra cotta warrior replicas were made, and then on how
lacquer furniture was made, and then took us through showrooms of antiques,
before we got to our buffet lunch, which wasn't bad -- it just wasn't
great. I did get to see noodles being
stretched.
And, of course, the sales pitch was easy to refuse (which
I did -- I kept thinking of all the 100's of $$ we're paying Jeannine for
decluttering assistance).
We passed a cable car in the distance going
up a mountain to a temple on the top, and I said I'd henceforth eschew
heights. L was not so easily put off
heights, in spite of an accident zip-lining in treetops in Costa Rica, where
her legs got hurt (her daughter, who does aerial circus stunts in addition to biochem
wanted to zip-line upside down and the person who was to tell L when to
brake was distracted until too late).
She's a better woman than I.
L also very vocal about who can possibly inhabit all
the high-rises we were seeing, and what can they possibly do for a
living?? Our local guide, Nancy, said
tourism was a principal industry -- how could that support a population of 9
million?? I pointed out, universities
(said to add 1 million students, add professors, support personnel). You can see this email is getting v
L-centric.
Then we had a lecture/performance of traditional Chinese
music, which was much better than I expected (it had been a lot of walking in
the heat) -- the lecturer had excellent English, her father was the head of the
ensemble, and (I think) her daughter did a performance on the pipa-- shaped
sort of like a lute, but you hold it vertically in your lap. There was a horizontal flute piece imitating
birdsong, marching music.
The book on factory girls in the Pearl River Delta is v
disjointed -- as are the lives of the girls (many under 18, working with fake
papers). One lost her cell phone, and,
with it, her connection with friends & boyfriend. No landlines that can be used to contact
people. Reminded me a little of the
people in Chester I know -- they're always switching between cell phones
because they can't pay the bill, or losing cell phones -- it's hard to stay in
contact.
No comments:
Post a Comment