A Wall and A Mall - Pingyao to Xi'an

From 618-907 AD, China was the greatest nation in the world.  Rome had fallen causing Europe to become engulfed in the Middle Ages.  Islam was just starting to burst out from the deserts of Saudi Arabia.  And people in the New World were still running around naked and sacrificing their defeated enemies on great ziggurats.  The Tang Dynasty was the Golden Age of China.  The country’s finances boomed with the trade from the Silk Route.  The strong military provided the stability from Northern barbarians that the country had lacked previously.  In fact, many neighboring tribes and nations were subdued and paid tribute to the Tang emperors.  The arts and literature of the Han Chinese flourished spreading their cultural influence to Japan and Southeast Asia.

During the Tang Dynasty, the capital of China was Chang'an, meaning 'eternal peace.'  Today that city is called Xi'an.  It's currently a popular destination for tourist both foreign and local.  The Wife and I had traveled there twelve years ago, but it was time to take the kids to see the epicenter of China's Golden Age.

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We were due to catch an early afternoon flight to Xian.  In order to get there, we would have to drive an hour to the nearest major airport in Taiyuan.  After getting our luggage packed, we ate a quick breakfast at our guesthouse.  The Wife ordered the same noodle dish for breakfast.

I had more mao er duo noodles, this time used in a beef soup.

The kids stole all the sugar cubes for my coffee.

Before we checked out of the guesthouse, Shanxi Lady took us on a tour of Pingyao's city walls.

We climbed up the city wall from the entrance at the North Gate Tower. 

From the Gate Tower, there are good views of the old city.

The original entrance to the  Gate Tower is not large enough for cars.

Therefore, it has been walled off.  A larger
entrance has been made for vehicular traffic.

Cannons sit atop the City Gate.  Any resident of Constantinople
can tell you that these armaments make a city wall obsolete.

Between each crenulation of the wall was an arrow slit.

A moat used to surround the walls.  It had been drained long ago.

There are a total of 72 watchtowers that run along the circumference of the city wall.

The walls are actually mounds of densely-packed dirt covered with stone bricks.

At a height of 40 feet with almost
no barrier to stop a person...

...it's advisable to watch your step around the inner edge of the wall.

From the wall, we could see a sea of solar panels on top of the houses.  It's a
big improvement over the days when most Chinese household burned coal. 

The entire city wall runs for about 6.2 km. We walked for about a quarter of the length--from one main gate to another.

At the next gate tower, we met a "guard" on duty.

We climbed down the gate tower stairs and returned to our guesthouse.

All over China, decorations were being setup for two celebrations that happened to fall on the same day.

The two holidays were Children's Day and
the Dragon Boat Festival.

 After checking out of the hotel, we drove an hour back to Taiyuan.  We were planning to meet with The Father-In-Law’s friend for lunch.  However, Surly Driver argued that he was only obligated to take us to the airport, and refused to drive us to the restaurant.  After much arguing, he agreed to bring us to the restaurant and then his obligation would be complete.  The Father-In-Law’s friend would have to take us the rest of the way.

I’m all in favor of the Asian custom of no-tipping.  While the concept of gratuities makes sense, in reality the practice has gotten distorted.  In the U.S. restaurant wait staff are routinely underpaid and must make their incomes on the whims of diners.  On the flip side, some waiters expect the 15-20% tip no matter how good or bad the job they do.  In the Middle East, the whole concept of tipping is out of control with baksheesh.  People expect money from you just for saying hello.  In contrast, no-tipping works well in countries like Japan, where there is an ingrained culture of excelling at ones job no matter how important or menial it is.  We never had a problem with service years ago when we visited there, and in fact it is even insulting to tip someone.  Unfortunately, with the Surly Driver, we also experienced the down-side when people don't work for a gratuity.  Since his fee was already negotiated for his job, he had no incentive to do a little more to make his clients’ experience a whole lot better.

We met the Father-In-Law’s friend at a nice restaurant in Taiyuan.  He pulled out all the stops to make sure we got a good impression of the food of the Shanxi province.

Stir-fried potatoes and herbs

A version of wantu much better than what we had at the guesthouse

Boiled bok choy

Stir-fried greens with peanuts

A really good crab and tofu soup

Fresh tofu with three dipping sauces

Chicken with really tender sea cucumber

Noodles braised with vinegar

A sweet and sour mushroom soup

Roasted lamb ribs

Pan-fried fish fillet

 

Our server brought a bowl filled with hot rocks.

She poured in a mixture of eggs and garlic chives.

She stirred the eggs around with the heated rocks.

It tasted like...scrambled eggs.

Fried durian cakes (surprisingly good.)

As is custom in Asia, fruit was brought out last.

We were all extremely stuffed by the meal.  Our group of five adults and three children were actually able to consume most of the meal.  The food was much better than anything we ate at Pingyao.  If I had known that we were going to eat this well, then I would have skipped breakfast and last night's dinner.  The Father-In-Law's friend then drove us to the airport in the nick of time to make our hour-long flight to Xian.

Once our plane landed mid-afternoon, we were met by Professor Horse, a very good friend of The Wife’s family whom she has known for decades.  He had lived in the U.S. for several years but moved back to Xi’an.  His children stayed behind and eventually became American citizens.  A dozen years ago, when we had visited Xi’an, he personally took us to all the sites in the area.  Now that he is in his eighties, he hired Bullwhip to drive us around.

While it is great having a local to help assist you in a foreign city, the downside is that you have to politely acquiesce to their housing suggestions.  There would be no fancy Westernized hotels or executive apartments for us in Xi’an.  We were stuck in the same university-affiliated lodgings, the Jiaoda Nan Yang Hotel, that The Wife and I had stayed in a dozen years ago.  While it was brand new back then, it has definitely showed its age.  Even worse, it was geared to the expectations of the local Chinese.

The amenities and service were lackluster at best.  Instead of placing our suitcases all on one luggage cart, the only one the hotel possessed had a flat tire.  Therefore, the doorman brought up one of our suitcases to our room while we got the rest of them.  The rooms weren't geared towards families.  There wasn't a room to accommodate 2 adults and 2 small children, so we ended up with two separate rooms.  They didn't have any adjacent ones with an attached door.  We had to keep our doors open so that the kids could go back and forth between them.  Many Chinese are huge smokers, so our rooms smelled like a humidor.  They did have a refrigerator.  However, it was worthless to keep anything cold when you left your room because the power went after the key card was taken out of its slot in the wall.  Guests were only given one keycard too.  I can’t complain much about the relatively expensive price for the rooms because Professor Horse insisted on paying since we were his guests.  I just wished the value reflected the price.

On a positive note, there was sign in the room reminding people not to smoke in bed!  

We were also glad that the
bathroom had a sitting toilet.

Professor Horse treated us to dinner at the Hotel’s Chinese-style restaurant.  We were all still stuffed from the lunch at Taiyuan.  Nevertheless, he ordered a ton of food, and we did our best to politely eat as much as possible.

The kids loved the green papaya with sesame oil.

Mashed potatoes with blueberry sauce (really!)

Crispy fried fish strips

Braised beef with dried fruit

Sauteed mustard greens

Soup with egg wrapper dumplings

Xi'an gourd chicken is boiled, steamed, and then fried...

...so that the skin is crispy and while the meat is tender.

Roast beef ribs

Sweet and sour mandarin fish

Crispy durian cakes

Cantonese scallion pancakes

The Wife with Professor and Mrs. Horse

While we were finishing dinner, Bullwhip drove back to the hotel and waited for us near his car.  Some people will pass the time taking a nap or using their cell phone.  Not Bullwhip.  He was out in the parking lot practicing with a full-sized whip.  From the lobby of the hotel, we could hear the small sonic booms coming from the parking lot.  Why he would need or want to take up this hobby, I will never know.  Maybe he's a big Indiana Jones fan?

We all loaded up into his brand-new Hyundai SUV.  All of the controls were written in English, a language that he could not read.  He spent a good minute hitting random buttons until he got the desired results.  It was both comical and frustrating at the same time, especially since I could actually read the writing on the buttons.  But the strangest thing that Bullwhip did was to put on some thick, heavy gloves in order to drive.  These weren't some fancy, specially-gripped leather driving gloves.  These were bulky, white wool gloves.  As we would see repeatedly during our time in Xi’an, no matter how hot it was in the car, the gloves would have to be worn.  He was a very friendly guy, but he really had some strange idiosyncrasies.

Bullwhip drove us all to the Dayan (Big Wild Goose) Pagoda that was built in 652 AD.  As we drove through Xi’an, it was apparent that the city has really boomed in the last twelve years.  There were bigger buildings and much more traffic.  The last time we had visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, there were few tourists on that cold and wet day.  This time, the place was packed.  It was a holiday in China and it seemed like the entire city was at this park.

With the double holiday, it seemed like the entire city was at the park around the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Several ladies (and one man) danced in synchronicity to music that blared from speakers.

Men practice calligraphy with brushes and water on the dusty floors.

Vendors sold all sorts of toys and gadgets geared towards children.

On the edge of the park is the Qin Han Tang Emporium,a mall with a huge LED screen covered the entire ceiling.  At 3,000 sq. meters, it is the largest indoor LED screen in all of Asia.  The scenes will constantly change from a forest with different seasons, to an underwater environment, to outer space, etc.  At $9.5 million, it delivers a sharp HD picture with vivid colors.  Too bad new technology will make it obsolete in 4 years.

It can literally be...

...to look up at the screen for too long

....a pain in the neck...

Instead of visiting the pagoda itself, we walked a little further to the Great Tang All Day Mall.  Opened in 2009, it consists of a series of fountains decorated with life-sized statues of notable figures from the Tang Dynasty.

The Great Tang All Day Mall is 1,500 meters long
and leads away from the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

The statues represent famous poets, authors, and
painters who have influenced Chinese culture.

These sculptures would have been a lot more interesting...

...if we knew who any of these people were.

The centerpiece of the mall...

...the co-founder of the Tang Dynasty.

...is the statue of the Emperor Tai Zong...

Statues of drummers and...

...his court officials are also nearby.

A statue of Wu Zetian, the only empress of feudal China for 4,000 years.  Although she proved to be
a capable leader, her reputation has been marred by the cruel and scheming method that she ascended
to the throne in 690 AD.  Technically, the 15 years of her rule were known as the Zhou Dynasty.

A statue of Emperor Xuan Zong, the subject of a famous drama, is the centerpiece of Kai Yuan Square.

The square is illuminated from eight
LED-lighted "dragon" columns 

  

After walking the length of the Great Tang All Day Mall, Bullwhip picked us up and drove us back to the hotel. Unfortunately, all the fresh air we got in the park made the smoky smell of our hotel rooms stand out even more.