Xi'an
It should be a lot of time that we don't update our diary... But don't worry about this, we are working for you! What distracted us from writing was the long journey we tackled from
Beijing to
Xi'an.
We left you at the Great Wall... The day after (11/10/2004) it was the turn of the Summer Palace, the former summer residence of the emperor. Developed around a large lake, it is surrounded by beautiful gardens and minor temples. It is obviously huge, so we took more than half a day to visit it. In the evening we went out with Luke who proposed us the usual satisfacting dinner.
We employed the next morning for a quick visit to an exhibition treating the future developments of
Beijing municipality... What they are planning for the next Olympics in 2008 is really unbelievable. A very interesting exhibition, even if really pityful on the language side (which doesn't allow us to deeply understand it)!
In the afternoon we reached the western station of
Beijing to take the train (the ticket costs 28,5 euros). More than in a station it gave us the idea of being in an airport.. crossing tunnels, strict controls at the entrance (metal detector) and a waiting room plenty of people. Finally, taken our train we accommodated on berths, the only place where we could sit. We divided the available beds with a nice Chinese family and, despite the obstacle of language, we intended perfectly. The total time spent for the trip was about 13 hours, for the beauty of 900 Kms.. Certainly not a lightning.
New cities, same sensations. Our initial sense of loss is immediately appeased by the presence of our new friend Lee (known in Italy as a jeans brand). Incredibly he speaks English! He waited impatiently for us, with the classic welcome ticket bearing our names, his presence here was the result of an existing collaboration between the provinces of Shaanxi and Treviso (Italy). After the hotel accommodation, thanks to the "dearest" van (sons of flowers model) ably driven by a Charles Bronson alias, we moved to discover this city starting with a visit to the Pagoda, the historical museum and the interesting Islamic quarter. At 16:00 we partecipated to an informal meeting with Mr. Wang and Mrs. ChengAi, for a nice pennant exchange and to collect more informations about the current situation of this Chinese province, naturally oriented to the interest in keeping the relationship with Treviso city dated back to 1987. In the evening we attended an institutional dinner prepared in the classical Chinese style. Typical dishes cooked in industrial quantity: difficult to say what kind of food it even was (they also didn't knew them): in particular we tried the skin of fish, sea flowers immersed in a sweet condensation of tomato, a very dense soup (very glad to them, even if inedible on our behaviours), kinda rice liquor that nearly killed us only with its own smell. Luck made that the wide range of available dishes allowed us to find something to our liking; endnote absolutely not negligible: all was kindly offered by the Shaanxi province.
Finally, today, will be dedicated to our official program, detailed to the minute by Mr Wang that also carefully instructed our personal chauffeur, nicknamed Charles by us. He waited us in the van, because at 9:00 we were expected to visit the famous clay army, but, like average Italians, we presented punctually at 9:52... First stop: the Imperial baths. The problem is that they weren't part of our demands (4 euros per person, bloody hell!!!!). It may seem a little amount to you, but in the struggle for survival that we are fighting, they were fundamental. Second stage: as requested, the famous clay army. What a prohibitive admission price we paid (9 euros each person)! We never paid so much for any monument. However a majestic work. Even if our expectations, compared to the cost of entry, were not completely satisfied.
Finally the good old Charles led us to a typical local restaurant (we were terrorized from the elegant appearance, usually meaning a terrific bill) where we were able to taste (a term suggested by Andrea) food intended to be cooked by ourselves on camping cooker, adding a more or less spicy sauce. Delicious!