3/8/25
Light on sleep and on our feet after a noodle-less breakfast we left with the aim of visiting the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. Daxingshan temple was just down the road and we happily nosed in to discover there was no entry free. Notable as a major temple complex, visited by the paramount leader Xi Jinping in 2015, it wasn’t remotely old. Multiple rebuilding stages, the most recent after the cultural revolution. Visiting domestic tourists were very prayer focused, bouncing up and down on prayer mats with two incense sticks while we tried to look at the intriguing temple walls and figurines. Signs even forbade photographs suggesting it was a temple of prayer not mere tourism.
Already frightfully hot we headed to a Luckin coffee to take advantage of the air conditioning. Then slipped into the large, elaborate over the top Saga mall to look for trainers. The difficulty was that they had a fashion focus rather than being practicable. Maximalism had take over Asia too, maybe before, and the unwieldy soles weren’t useful, or good, for anyone. We left empty handed. But at least it wasn’t outside which had become torturous and was now topping 40C.
So what did we do? As we are insane, we went to the city walls. The most well preserved in all of China. Of course it has also been repaired and reconstructed many times. Everything in China has. Originally built by the first emperor of the Ming dynasty in the 14th century, it demonstrated the importance of Xi’an as the start/end of the Silk Road.
Almost 14km long, with multiple gates, towers and other fortifications, one can cycle the entire way round. Excited by this prospect we paid ¥100 to get in and then we hired a tandem bicycle for another ¥90. But the bike was an absolute piece of shite. Our saddles were so low that we couldn’t rotate our legs, the chain was rusty, tyres were flat and the bottom bracket creaked. Even after we changed the bike it was equally terrible so we demanded a refund and strolled along.
Less than a few hundred metres later, after an extended break at a turret, we left the wall disappointed by our inability to enjoy it fully. Too great was the heat. Uninhabitable. How the residents survived being unable to go outdoors for several months of the year was beyond us. Like them, we relented and found yet another shopping mall, a short walk and a metro stop away. Now we understood how the numerous malls were financially viable, even though they all contained identical shops.
Kaiyuan shopping centre was accessed directly from Zhonglou station therefore requiring minimal exposure to the dangerous environment outside. After another coffee we continued shoe shopping and Frankie finally found a suitable pair, in Skechers no less. Xi’an bell tower was moved in the 16th century, but still sits at the centre of the city. Kaiyuan had a special viewing platform of the dawn notifying structure that no longer houses the original bell – it’s now in the Forest of Stone Steles Museum.
Rongmin Longshou was our next mall. In the basement was the Rain Drop Vegan buffet. Discoverable only on the ‘Vegan Radar’ WeChat miniapp, we found an array of delicious dishes including some slightly more western looking rolls and cakes. Several hours later, not eating the whole time, we took a long tube ride to Xihuayuan in the town of Litong. Far out to the east of the city but still on the metro system the town is close by to the excavation site of the Terracotta Army.
Once again on the recommendation of our train friend we had managed to secure tickets for ‘Chang Hen Ge’ or the Song of Everlasting Sorrow. Exceptionally famous as a poem written in 809, it had been remade into an exceptionally popular outdoor show. Bai Juyi’s masterpiece describes how the 7th emperor of the Tang dynasty was distracted by his love and oversaw the crumbling of the golden age in Chinese civilisation.
Having bought our tickets so late that we were lucky to get any, we were assigned seats that weren’t even together, just close. Men and women were unusually split up for security scanning, and we watched the photographic identification of subjects work for Chinese citizens but not for us. They really didn’t care about what we did. “Coincidentally”, we were sat next to some of the only other westerners in the entire theatre.
Incredible, awe inspiring and jaw dropping. Insane and safety defying. We’d never seen anything like it. Flying actors, over 300 performers, majestic costumes, water fountains, fireworks, jets of fire, huge screens, twinkling mountain sides and a huge fake Moon. We were blown away. Without even understanding the voiceover. No matter how tired we were from cramming everything in Xi’an into a couple of days, this kept us awake.
Ignoring the cries of “Xi’an” by the taxi drivers we walked back to our hotel. Glad it was close by and still perplexed by the fact that we’d only watched the second showing of three that occurred every night. We’d paid handsomely, and it was worth every penny of the ¥400 each it had cost. The true phenomenon was how the actors managed it. Sure, we had cycled in the heat of the Sun everyday for months, but they were performing the same thing every day, late at night, three times!
Surly They Won't Make It 