Duquesne Asian Study Tour 2010: Welcome to Xi'an

Our train arrived at 8:25 AM and we were greeted by Jo, our guide who will be with us through Shanghai. We went straight to the Bell Tower Hotel, a 4-star hotel which is gorgeous! Night and day from our hotel in Beijing and probably the nicest place we’ll stay on our trip. We enjoyed a half Western, half Chinese breakfast, which, too, will probably be the best on our trip. The hotel is directly across from the Bell Tower and to the right of the Drum Tower. These towers were used to indicate when the draw bridges at the Ming-era City Gate were to open (Bell Tower) and close (Drum Tower) daily. Upon arriving at the hotel, we ate breakfast. Of course because of the early hour, our rooms weren’t ready (check-out by 11AM; check-in by 2PM). So we weren’t able to shower and freshen up. I know…don’t even think about it. If you’ve never traveled by train, the only place you have to freshen up are the public bathrooms, and trust me, you don’t want to go in these unless you absolutely have to. It’s a great learning experience for our students. J

After leaving our luggage, we went to bike ride on the Ming-era City wall. We would need to shower after that anyway (and we did!), so we saved a step. This is the only city in China that still has the wall surrounding it completely intact. The wall is 9 miles and is in the shape of a rectangle. Everyone had a great time bicycling and a few students even rode tandem bikes. It takes about an hour to ride all the way around.

We then proceeded to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. The temple was the place where the great translator Monk Yijing of the Tang Dynasty translated Buddhist scriptures. Of course, it had to rain on our trip at some point, but the gardens and Pagoda are so beautiful, it didn’t matter. At least it didn’t rain while we were biking.

We ended our day with dinner at the Small Shell Restaurant. Jo does such an awesome job ordering for us and we continue to try many new things. Talk about fresh seafood! There are aquariums in the lobby and they aren’t for decoration. This is typical in many Chinese restaurants. The breading on our breaded shrimp tasted like funnel cake batter and the fried dough at the end for dessert was AMAZING!