Xi'an -- City Wall

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!!!!
And we were prepared to celebrate our Thanksgiving with Slim Jims and Butterfingers ;0)
Although, we had such a busy day, we never had the chance to partake :0(

But, back to our tour....

Xi'An is the city of peace in the west.
Xi = west An = peace
It is a city of eight million people and covering 5600 square miles where an apartment is four times cheaper and salaries are half than in Beijing.

Twenty-two hundred years old and the starting point of the silk road, Xi'an is the only Chinese city with its wall still standing. Our hotel was also the only hotel inside the city wall.

Up until 600 years ago, the inner area of the wall was surrounded by a moat and only accessed by a drawbridge, but entered only by the royal family, keeping the poor outside the walls.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Queen for a Day!! ..... or at least a few moments... 

 

 

I have no idea what this thing is, but, it seems it would be a very mean crowd control device! 

The wall has an outer gate and an inner gate. When an enemy attacks and breaks through the outer gate, they believe they've broken into the city, but, they've put them self in a trap in this square. During the National War, Xi'An was saved from destruction by "catching a turtle in a jar"!

Old meets new .... and even newer being built.
LOVED seeing the colorful fall leaves!!!!  

It took me a bit to realize this was a trash can! 

The Baileys 

Yep, a Mini-Cooper on the side of a building!! 

Looks like China loves Pepsi! 

Meet our driver,  Peng. He may have done a great job maneuvering their 3-ring road system, but he NEVER smiled. And, it was obvious he sat on the bus and smoked the whole time we were off of it..... But, guess that shouldn't have been such a surprise since 700 million people smoke in China. The government owns the the tobacco company (making a profit from the cigarette sales) and pays farmers to grow the tobacco. Men actually greet each other in the mornings by exchanging cigarettes. If they, by chance, don't smoke, they put it behind their ear saving it to pass along later.

Speaking of greetings, I found it interesting how their greetings have traded through the years....
Before the 1970s people would greet each other with "Have you eaten?" replying with "I've eaten" regardless if they had or not. (Sounds familiar to our "How are you?" "Just fine." even when things are not fine!)
Over time that greeting changed to "Have you become rich?"
While the modern day greeting is "Have you divorced?" due to the fact their divorce rate has gone from 0% to 33% just in this century!

Xi'an -- Grand Noble Hotel

On our drive from the airport to the hotel, with it being dark, it was hard to really see the country side. But, as we got into the city, we started seeing some familiar sights-- KFC, McDonald's, Haagen Dasz, Starbuck's, and Walmart..... wait.... Walmart?? YES, WALMART!!!!!! The air was SUCKED  out of the bus as we all gasped, then exclaimed-- "WALMART!!!!" Sadly, none of us had our cameras out, so we didn't get a picture and even more sadly,
we never got to visit ......

But, we did make it to our hotel, the Grand Noble Hotel!
 

the entrance 

the lobby 

 

Terracotta Warrior statues outside the restaurant

 

Our room 

entry 

bathroom on the right

 

Nice size room!! 

A really cool view of a lit-up building!!

Our stay here was very short; up and out early the next morning for our Terracotta Warrior viewing, then up early again the following morning for our transfer to Shanghai......

Beijing -- to Xi'an

Saying good-bye to Beijing...


"Factory Dorms" like this made up a vast amount of the neighborhoods we saw. Each 400 square foot/one-room apartment rented for about $5 a month and housed one lawful three-person family. The factory would send buses to pick up workers and transport them to/from work. Each of these blue collar workers received the same pay (~$300/month) regardless the amount or quality of work they performed.
Up the ladder from blue collar workers are the white collar office workers earning ~$600, golden collar professors and doctors earning ~$1200, while the big bucks go to the diamond collar business owners raking in ~$2000 a month!! Thinking of those pay earnings, remember that 'rent = not successful'.... Truly successful people put 50% of their income to a house payment!!

A few cool looking buildings along the way....

 

 

This one has my name on it!! 

Different styles of Chinese lanterns were hanging along  most of the roadways.

Our driver, Goh, taking us through a fantastically decorated toll booth.

 

Traffic in Beijing is the worst in China!!
With about five million cars on the road, it's really no wonder there are about 60,000 people killed each year in traffic accidents.

The greater cities use a "ring road system." Beijing has a five-ring road system, indicating there are five main roads that circle (ring) through Beijing (kind of looks like a spider web on the map). The 2nd Ring Road (which we were on) is always packed to the point they have to limit its use. They've done this using the last digit on the license plate numbers, allowing only certain numbers on the road on certain days. For example-- the last digit on the plate in the picture is a "5," so they may only be allowed on the 2nd Ring Road on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
On the other days, that driver may choose to join the more than six million fellow citizens who use the massive subway system. Surely one of the 15 subway lines (plus five more under construction!) would get them where they needed to go! As you can imagine, the subways are quite busy and packed. This is where those retirees I wrote about earlier can make a few extra yuan. They can get a job as a "pushing lady" or "pushing man"!!!! They would work during the morning and evening rush hours (4 hours/day) literally pushing more people into the subway cars! So, as you can also imagine, with all that pushing going on, there is pretty much NO personal space for the Chinese. They are always so used to being packed together, it leads to the idea they are "sticky rice"!!

We made it safely through all that traffic to the airport, got checked in, and found our gate. Now to wait for our flight.....

Yep, a Smoovlatte and ~Snickers~ ought to make a great waiting snack!!

 

Travelling with fun friends also helps pass the time!!!
[The brown and multi-colored paper hats we purchased for Rodney's folks at the Great Wall.]

Clark went all the way to China to get his yellow Angry Bird hat 'hot off the press' ;0) 

We totally got photobombed when Clark wanted to play photographer!!

Finally, it was time to board our China Eastern plane. 

China Southern was one of the other airlines, which, by the way, are all owned and controlled by the government.

The in-flight "chicken and rice" dinner consisted of rice, chicken with celery and carrots, a salad with more celery and carrots, a slice of some kind of lunch meat something??, cantaloupe, a roll, and a cup of water. The chicken and rice was really quite tasty!!

We arrived safely in Xi'an, gathered our luggage and made our way to the bus by way of the "Elevator For Handicapped Persons" (aka: a ramp)!!!

Then it was off to the hotel and sleep in preparation of a big day in Xi'an to be highlighted with a visit to the
 Terracotta Warriors!!