30/10/2009

Day 25 - Xi'an: City Wall, Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Today we went to look at the Xi'an City wall, which was built to protect the city. Xi'an was once the capital of China as the city was strategically well placed, 2 sides of the city are lined with mountains and another is protected by the Yellow river. The wall is 14km long and watch towers were placed every 120m as the distance for an arrow was 60m, this also helped to protect the city from invaders. On top of the wall it was a wide as a street. Mum, Dad and I rode a bicycle built for two, but because I am small I was allowed to ride with them. Dad even let me steer for a while, Mum wasn't impressed, she got a little scared as Dad and I wanted to go faster and test the bikes turning circle. It was lots of fun and we laughed heaps. Uncle Scott's and Aunt Jess' bike chain fell off on the way back and some Chinese men tried to help them put it back on with no luck, so they had to walk it back the last 150m.

After the Xi'an wall we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda, a temple built for the Buddhist.

In the evening we went for dinner and a show. We had many different dumplings some were nice and other strange ones. The show was amazing we saw many different types of dances and music. Mum's favourite was the white sleeve dance, Dad enjoyed the ribbon dance and my favourite was the man who played a funny looking trumpet and could make a funny noise with his voice. The show was so good that we bought a DVD of the show.