A Giant Brown Panda and Chinese Hamburgers

We got up this morning, got ready to go, and had the breakfast buffet again.  I'm liking this hotel and this city.  But, today, we're leaving the city.  It's a significant distance from town because we wanted to go to the Qinling Four Rare Animals Science Park, which houses the Giant Panda Research Center, but the hotel told our driver we were going to the Qinling Zoo.  So, our driver was waiting, and we headed out, arriving at the zoo.  When we went to buy tickets, it didn't look like what we were looking for.  So, through the translator app, I asked the lady what tickets we needed in order to see the brown panda.  She said we needed tickets to a different place in a different suburb, and she gave our driver the address of where we actually wanted to go.  Turns out, our destination was on the other side of Xi'an, but our driver didn't even complain.  He just headed out.  We finally made it to the park.

We got our entrance tickets and our tram tickets to the top of the hill, where we started the long, slow, fabulous trip down.  Obviously, we started with the giant pandas.  There was a giant black panda out in the yard sunning itself.

Then, there was a shuffle toward an interior room, and this is what I saw.

Hello, Qi Zai!!  The Qinling Mountains is the only place in the world that has this color variant.  All other giant pandas are black and white (when clean) except for the one albino panda that has been seen.  In the Qinling Mountains, there is a mutation that causes some families of pandas to be brown instead of black, and Qi Zai is the only one in captivity.  He is also the reason I wanted to come to this science park.  After he ate whatever was in the little metal bowl in the corner of that room, he made his way outside.  I was at the rail for this exit.

Soon after he came out, I made my way to the front of the enclosure so I could see him face on.

I just love the way he lays back and drops his crumbs on his chest.  I've been known to do the same, Qi Zai!  I do the same!  It's pretty much the same mechanism as the golden monkeys in Uganda do, but the golden monkeys sit up and eat faster.

He just looks so happy going for the next bamboo!

By this time, he's gotten very tired.  Eating is such hard work!

Isn't that just the prettiest face with that little tongue sticking out?

After getting that nourishment, he walked over to the opening in the wall to converse with his buddy.  It's now time to visit.  His buddies are giant black pandas.  Qi Zai is that only brown panda in captivity.  They are separated by a grill in the hole in the wall between the enclosures.

Look at that huge paw!

By the time Qi Zai went to sleep and I left his enclosure, most of the pandas were sleeping.  I did like that this center didn't let anybody harass the animals at all.  Not only could you not throw things or stuff, but in the baby center, somebody whistled as if they were trying to get the panda's attention, and a docent made them stop.

The center is called the Four Rare Treasures Animal Park, but they have more than four rare treasures.  The rarities are the giant panda, the golden snub-nosed monkey, the crested ibis, and this guy, the takin.  The takin is also known as the "gnu goat" because he looks like a cross between a goat and a gnu.  This is a golden takin, and they live exclusively in the Qinling Mountains (like the giant brown panda).  In fact, all four of the rarities are found primarily in the Qinling Mountains that surround the park.

But they didn't only have the four rare treasures.  In the aviary, they had the common crane

the black stork

the asiatic black bear (AKA the moon bear because of the moon shapes on his chest)

the red-billed blue magpie

and the red panda.  I just love these guys!  They had two in this enclosure,

The last animals on the way down the hill was the golden snub-nosed monkeys.  I had never heard of these guys before, and we were initially confused because they looked nothing like the golden monkeys we had seen in Uganda, and those monkeys only lived in the Virunga Mountains, not even surviving in zoos when captured and relocated.  These were very different.  They had two different enclosures.  This enclosure seemed to have a mother and four children

while the other enclosure seemed to have a few family groups.  They have sharp teeth

and lovely long hair on their backs.

After seeing all the animals, we went by the souvenir tents at the entrance/exit and picked up a few things, then I bought some waters for us and the driver, and we headed back to the hotel.  We wrote our post cards to the kids at home, rested for a minute, and got directions to the post office from the concierge.  All these times we had gotten lost trying to get from the gate to the hotel, we could have just used the walking subway under the old town!!  How did I not know that foot traffic is underground in the old town of Xi'an??  Just go to the next block and take the stairs downstairs!  This would have been sooooo nice to have known when we first got here!

So, our stop was #3, and the concierge said we wanted to go to #6 for the post office.  So we headed out.  The plan was to mail the post cards and come back to the hotel, so I left my camera in the hotel.  Once we got down there, we found that the Muslim quarter, where the market we had heard so much about, was at #9, so we went on to the Muslim quarter.  Therefore, the rest of my pictures were taken with my phone.  As soon as we came up, we saw this.  I love the quilts they use on scooters throughout China!

As we entered the Muslim quarter, we saw the drum tower.  The drum tower marks the end of the old town and the beginning of the Muslim Quarter.  I hear it's one of the most bustling markets in Xi'an.

Drums line the entire building.  We didn't go up, but you can see drums on the tower.

Soon after entering the Muslim Quarter, we saw a chocolate museum.  Let me say that again - a Chocolate Museum!!  The first chocolate sculptures in the museum were from the Terra Cotta Warriors.

Then, there were musical instruments, foods, and other sculptures

Once you complete the museum, you enter the store - or should I say stores!  And there were samples!  Therefore, there weren't as many pictures as there should have been.  Ultimately, it wound through multiple stores that weren't related to chocolate and dumped us back out on a street, still in the market.

When we got hungry, we decided on having Chinese Hamburgers.  We had heard they were an experience, but weren't given any more information.  In Chinese, the sandwich is called rou jia mo, and it's delicious!  The meat is simmered for hours with spices and then just before being served, it's chopped into mince with chili sauce, with or without minced onions and peppers.  After everything is minced up and mixed, it's put in a steamed bun that's almost like a pita bread, but steamed, called mo.  The place we got it from had waterproof square pockets for eating, and they put a little extra juice in it.

It was to DIE FOR!  Chinese hamburgers will go on the list for dinner rotations at home!

On the way back to the subway, we walked through this plaza that had the cutest benches.

We went back to the hotel and got ready to leave for Hong Kong the next day.  It's an all day train.  I think I want to come back to Xi'an to explore the town more and have more of the food.

Clay Soldiers, Water Works, a Wild Goose, and Another Wall

We got up early enough to have the breakfast buffet, which was huge and delicious, with both western and Chinese food.  Then we met our guide, Andy, in his van in front of the 7-11 with the rest of the group going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.  After picking everybody up, we headed out of town while Andy gave us some history and cultural information.

Xi'an is the oldest city still existing in it's own place and name in China, dating back over 3000 years.  Even as late as 30 years ago, most of the population lived inside the walls and outside the walls was mostly farmland.  Now, the population has risen to over 30 million, and the city has three ring roads outside of the old city wall, with loads of skyscrapers.  The average condo/apartment size is 60-100 square meters (645 - 1076 sq ft), but this includes the exterior walls and public areas.  The average purchase price is 30,000 yuan per square meter (about the equivalent of $400 USD per square foot).  Back in the day, the bell tower would ring in the morning, and the drums in the drum tower would sound at night.  There is a Tang Dynasty Museum and Park, where the Emperors, Empress Wu, and other royalty lived, and where the general population was forbidden, kind of like the better known Forbidden City in Beijing.  I tried, but didn't get the shot as we drove past it.  An electric car company called Build Your Dreams (BYD) is headquartered in Xi'an, and we saw many of their cars on the road.  License plates for electric cars are green, and those cars have no driving restrictions.  Cars that run on gas have blue plates, and they can only be on the road on certain days, based on the tag number.  The attempts they're making in air conservation (pollution control) seems to be working, as the air is much cleaner here than in  Beijing.  Of course, it's not hard to have cleaner air than Beijing.  We learned a lot from Andy, and this is just the stuff I was able to get written down on my phone.  There was much more.  

But, we finally made it to our destination and we got out of the van/bus and headed for the entrance, where we were greeted with a huge stone statue of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, and the man who constructed the terra cotta army to protect his mausoleum.

There are conflicting accounts of Emperor Qin.  Some say he was a paranoid tyrant who abused his population to complete his follies, such as this imperial army of warriors to protect him in the afterlife.  Others say he was a mastermind, though I can't find anything that disputes his reputation as a tyrant.  The Terra Cotta Army wasn't known until a farmer accidentally unearthed some pottery and other items in the 1970s while trying to dig a well.  Other farmers also unearthed parts, and the Chinese government eventually took over the area and began hiring archeologists to properly excavate and preserve them.  This is the first look we got of them, right after entering the first pit.  This is the place where most people take that wide-angle shot.  All the way back to 24 mm, I couldn't get the closest edges, but look how far back this goes!  If you notice all of the berms between the rows, there is believed to be more warriors that have not been excavated there, so there are many more that have not been unearthed.

There is significant detail on all of these soldiers.  It is said that each of these is modeled after a real person.  If you notice the hands, they were holding real weapons when they were initially constructed.  However, at some point, the tomb is believed to have been raided, at which time, many of those weapons were stolen.  At some point, the mausoleum was burned, and any remaining weapons, chariots, and anything that would burn was lost.  Raiders and marauders knocked down the warriors and the structures.  The figures were initially painted, but much of the black on the statues is from the fire.  Not all pieces of all of the warriors have been found, so some heads or hands or other parts are missing.

An area that is only partially excavated.

Horses with the charioteers behind.  The blank space is where the chariot would have been.

Another wide-angle shot, this time from the side

One of the areas where they are working on reassembling the individual statues

There were several statues with their coolers of unassembled parts and tied together

There were also a few pieces just laying on the floor in a pile.

This video shows just how vast this first pit is.

One of the areas where they are reassembling the warriors

Some parts of some warriors are wrapped in plastic.  These are pieces that still have some of the original paint on them.  The plastic helps keep the original lacquer moist so it doesn't flake and peel before the proper preservatives can be applied.

Reassembling horses

We went into the third pit next.  It's much smaller and appears to be more of an administrative headquarters type of area, based on the arrangement of the warriors.

These designs on the tiles are original.

This is pit 2, which is still being very actively excavated.

You can see the remnants of the wire spokes for the chariot wheel

The windows have this relief against them in this pit.

This is how they are when they are first uncovered.

They also have a museum where they have put the better assembled and preserved items.  The more ribbons a warrior wore, the higher his rank.

The Emperor was also buried with multiple animals.  Many of these were bronze instead of clay.

 After seeing the museum, we went to Andy's mother's house, where she fed us a delicious homemade lunch.

Andy and his mother

We got off the bus/van in front of the Wild Goose Pagoda, just in time for the fountain show, which happens every afternoon.  There are multiple statues in the plaza heading to the fountain.

It probably would have been prettier with the Wild Goose Pagoda in the background, but I didn't think about that at the time and watched with the Wild Goose Pagoda behind me.  It was still a nice show.

After the show, we went back to the Wild Goose Pagoda and temple area.  It was really nice.

This is the Wild Goose Pagoda.  I never quite got the purpose of it, but there is no elevator or escalator, and to get to the top, you have to walk up seven flights of stairs.  We did not walk up.

The bell and drum towers looked alike and were next to each other.  Again, the bell rang in the morning, and the drum sounded at night.

The bell inside the bell tower

The drum inside the drum tower

Lots of different Buddhas in the Buddha temples.  Each Buddha represents different spiritual qualities.

And there are instructions on the proper way to show your respect to the Buddhas.

I still love the figures on the roofs of buildings.

Finally, we caught a rickshaw home.  Our driver couldn't figure out how to get there, and he kept stopping and asking people, who also didn't know.  Finally, he pulled up alongside a young guy who took the old guy's phone and my phone, set the old man's phone map to the right address, and sent us on our way.  We stopped him at the wall because we decided we still had time to wander the top of the wall.  It took a while to figure out how to get up there, but we made it.

There is an amphitheater at the top of the stairs, just before the top of the wall.  They hold concerts there.

They had a series of blow-up figures along the top of the wall, sponsored by different companies.

You could almost see the mote that goes all the way around the outside of the city wall from here.

Restaurants on the inside of the wall

Rooftop bars on the inside of the wall

You can see the Bell tower and the few tall buildings in the old town, though most of the skyscrapers are required to be outside of the wall.

When we came down from the wall, we caught another tuk-tuk home.  We got lost yet again.  I finally was able to translate our hotel name and address to Chinese in my phone.  The driver called his wife and she told him how to get there.  Once we arrived, he called her again to find out how much to charge and how to give me the Alipay QR code.  I did get this shot of the Bell Tower on the way past.

When we got to the hotel, we made arrangements with the concierge to have a driver pick us up to take us to the Four Rare Animals Wildlife Park in the morning.  Still loving Xi'an!