Xi'an: Day 2: Shaanxi Museum, Buddhist Temple, Great Mosque, Han Yangling Museum

In contrast to Saturday, on Sunday we had an early start, leaving the hotel at 8:30am.

I took these pictures this day. Again, my friend D took many more. The latter link goes to the first picture in her set for the day; the day's pictures end with three pictures in a row of our tour group. If you hit people in a sleeper car in a train, you've gone too far.

Our first destination was the Shaanxi History Museum. It mostly contained bronze and clay artifacts (vessels, statues, etc.) from five dynasties. Interestingly, some of the images I saw represented on Tang Dynasty pieces looked familiar to things I saw in the show the previous night (e.g., the sleeve dancers). I spent about an hour in the museum. Because we arrived at the same time as a bunch of tour groups, upon entering I skipped and started the museum in the middle in order to do things in a less crowded fashion.

Our group next went to visit the Buddhist Temple and Bell Tower and Wild Goose Pagoda and Drum Tower. The temple had a big gilded buddha, surrounded by 50 small buddhas and bas reliefs of monks on each side. All the rafters had intricate, gilded carvings. Pretty impressive.

The courtyard was decorated with many birds in cages, chirping, and also wild roosters.

On the way to lunch, we stopped to watch a massive water show. Nice.

Xi'an is reportedly famous for dumplings. At our lunch restaurant, we got to try a ton! It was fun. :)

After lunch we stopped by the 13-centuries-old Great Mosque, then visited the nearby bazaar. The mosque had no domes, no traditional minarets -- the architecture was completely Chinese. The bazaar had lots of dried fruit, shelled nuts (especially walnuts), and other stuff for sale. I was tempted to buy a jade comb, which I think was the first time a toiletry product tempted me. I picked up a present for my parents: a miniature terracotta officer. 2 RMB = about 25 cents. And, yes, I over-paid; I could've gotten it cheaper. I also bought myself chopsticks, a set of four for 65 RMB. I probably could've gotten them for less than 50, but it's a decent price. At the bazaar by Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai I'd likely end up paying 100+ RMB for ones I like. I was picky: I wanted wood chopsticks that were carved, not painted, and with an appealing taper. (By the way, I was similarly picky about the material, size, and coloring of my gift for my parents.) Most vendors here, incidentally, had the same selection of goods.

The final stop on our tour was the Han Yangling Museum. It's entirely underground, built above the tomb of a Han Dynasty emperor. We donned shoe covers and got to walk on a glass floor above the unearthed relics.

Then back to Shanghai I went.