2/8/25
Ever so slightly refreshed, we drank a cup of black tea as breakfast. Not wanting to waste the cooler morning temperatures or spend another ¥60 on breakfast. Romance of the Three Kingdoms was rearing its head again. The 14th century novel formed a strong backbone of Chinese culture that pervaded deeply into the lives of the people. We’d first heard of it back in Menghuo. Blending history and fiction it covered the period from 184 to 280AD, the end of the Han Dynasty, and the subsequent Three Kingdoms period.
Wuhou Shrine was the only memorial in China that honoured both an emperor and their prime minister. Buying tickets for any attraction always involved showing our passport, Chinese people obviously used their ID cards. Using such an important document so regularly and liberally made us feel a little awkward. Taking the direct route to skip some of the crowds that already built up, we viewed numerous statues in temple like buildings. Zhuge Liang cooled himself with a trademark feather fan. The statesman was immortalised for his stratagems and loyalty to Emperor Liu Bei who was also in lifeless form with his two brothers. Together, the three men represent Confucian ideals. Supposedly, the truth of the stories attributed to these figures is a moot point. Their legends form the backbone of Chinese military thinking, along with Sun Tzu’s famous book of course.
The “tablet of triple success” was a little hard to find. It was in fact on display where we’d walked in. So called because of the excellent prose, masterful calligraphy masterful and meticulous carving. The topic is of course Zhughe Liang’s virtues. By now the crowds had become unimaginably large and difficult to negotiate. Dripping with sweat we left and headed back to the hotel, collected our back and took a cheap electric taxi, only 30p more expensive than the metro, to Chengdudong.
Airport like and cavernous were the two thoughts that came to our mind. Immediately we were thrust through security, x-ray machines and metal detectors. No ticket was needed, efficiently?, our passports were our ‘tickets’. There were three ways to purchase railway tickets:
- At the station in person. Impossible, because everything is booked up weeks in advance. Anyone who has seen Race Across the World knows this.
- Using the official 12306.cn app. There is a website but it always says it’s busy. Only the app actually works. English version does exist.
- By way of the Trip.com app. Very easy to use, but charges a commission fee. Having not found the 12306.cn app yet, we had stomached this to secure our first set of tickets.
The station was enormous. Platforms were accessed from gates, labelled similarly to airports, our train to Xi’an left in an hour and a half from gate A20. Purposefully very early just in case it was tricky to navigate the station, which it wasn’t. Cotti Coffee was a challenger brand to the dominance of Luckin. Stupidly cheap, a £1 for an oat milk latte. Frankie tried in vain to find something that wasn’t noodles.
Ten minutes before our gate opened huge queues formed. Customary behaviour that serves zero purpose as there is assigned seating. Worse, it’s easy to sidle in at the front if you have very little luggage. So that’s what we did.
We were exceedingly excited for our first high speed train experience. Having lived with the United Kingdom’s outdated and frustratingly slow network, we had high expectations for the world renowned Chinese railways. On the long platform the train carriages were numbered sensibly, front to back. It was easy to find our seats, which had plenty of legroom, though being at the front of the car we had a partially obscured outside view. It ended up not mattering, perhaps 40% of our journey was underground. The best views were split seconds of narrow gorges and emerging from the mountains to the west of Xi’an.
From Xianbei we took the underground directly to Wulukou. Stepping out into the concrete jungle we were struck by the stiflingly heat. Even hotter temperatures than Chengdu. Suxiangyuan vegetarian buffet restaurant had a wide array of delicious foods for a mere ¥25 each. We gobbled as much as we could before visiting Decathlon and getting yet another new backpack. A small one for Frankie.
As we stepped out of Xiaohazi metro station we were suddenly next the ridiculous Saga mall with huge LCDs looking down on us. Hundreds of trendily dressed people walked around us. A kilometre through the surprising district we reached the Best Home Inn which wasn’t upmarket at all and at best rather dated. At worst it was tragically tired and it reminded Frankie of The Shining.
Despite it being after 9:30pm and our bed calling we booked a taxi to Datang Everbright City. Recommended by a train passenger. Congestion meant we sat almost right outside the hotel for 15 minutes. Staring through the windows we observed the bustling metropolitan shoppers.
‘Everbright City’ was 2km of brightly lit buildings, statues and of course tourist orientated food shops. It was all completely fake and no one cared. In our tired state, neither did we. Western tourists were scattered around. Facial features we’d started to lose familiarity with. Shouting at a fountain made the water jets higher. Random sets of statues down the centre of the street. Importantly there were zero cars or scooters. Perhaps the cause of its popularity.
At the very end of the light show street was the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. Lit up like a Christmas tree. It wasn’t possible to explore but we enjoyed its shape. Taxis were hard to come by due to the traffic, we walked a little way. Found a luxury electric vehicle waiting for us, and went straight home, eager to sleep.
Surly They Won't Make It 