Part 5 of our June 2009 trip to China with the Speizmans.
Friday, June 12 – Beijing to Xian
We got ourselves checked out of the Raffles and transported back to the fancy new Beijing airport. We had enough time to relax a little and explore the amenities. It beat any airport we could think of in the U.S., though it was a little light on shopping and food options.
We flew to Xian (Xi’an, if you want to be proper about it, but I will be lazy in this post) without incident, though I still had some trepidation about flying China’s internal airlines. The landscape got progressively drier and browner as flew toward Xian, the countryside no longer densely populated.
As with Beijing, Xian had a new airport that was far out of town. Unlike Beijing, the drive into town allowed a wide vista over the flat, dusty plain. As we rode in the taxi, I was astonished to see a phalanx of modern apartment buildings loom in the distance, spread from horizon to horizon. Xian seemed to be a much larger city than I recalled from our last visit in 1988 on our tour with Kate. In fact, the city’s population had more than doubled, from under 2 million to more than 5 million. Many of these modern buildings were either still under construction or barely occupied, but it was remarkable to consider the shift to modern conveniences the city’s workers and former peasants could now seemingly afford.
We checked into our hotel, the Sofitel Xian on Renmin Square, a modern component in a complex that included the more traditional Xian Peoples’ Grand Hotel (is that where we stayed in 1988?). The older Peoples’ Grand was completely renovated in 2014 to a very fancy yet clumsily named Sofitel Legend Peoples Grand Hotel.
We decided to split up for the afternoon. Barb took a rest in the room. Sydney and Allie went with Rick (and Faith?) for a walk and bicycle ride on Xian’s famous city walls. I was more interested in seeing the commercial heart of Xian clustered around the ancient Bell and Drum Towers. I started at the Bell Tower which sits in a large roundabout at the center of Xian’s old town.
The Bell Tower has an interesting history. Originally erected in 1384 in the early Ming Dynasty about a kilometer from its current location, it was essentially a sort of clock used to announce the time of day. In 1582, as the city walls expanded, the Bell Tower was dismantled and moved to its current location at the heart of the city and conjunction of North, South, East and West streets.
Don’t even try to cross the circle.
I decided to circumnavigate the tower for a 360 degree view around the surrounding streets. I was fascinated by the traffic, construction, and the fact that I had no memory of visiting this landmark during our 1988 visit. Most fascinating to me was the new Xian Kaiyuan Shopping Mall with its requisite McDonald’s prominently located on the circle. It looked so modern and out of place — like a UFO landed in Xian — such an aggressive symbol of modern commercialism in this communist country and ancient capital.
I went from the Bell Tower to the nearby Drum Tower. To get there, I crossed a square and discovered another subterranean mall, this one a very high end one with western outlets like Gucci and Chanel. There were very few shoppers inside and I wondered who this mall was geared towards. International tourists? Domestic tourists? Certainly not many locals. Each shop was populated with a small staff of forlorn looking young Chinese female and male clerks. I wondered what they must have thought of their days, lucky to have landed this plum retail spot but bored out of their minds at the same time. It didn’t seem right to take pictures of them but I wanted to.
The Drum Tower was a companion to the Bell Tower, also originally a timepiece of sorts. It’s a very imposing building that also houses a drum museum. The tower is also an entryway of sorts to the Muslim Quarter, an ancient section of Xian that dates back to its terminus of the Silk Road.
After scoping out the tower and museum, I headed back toward the Kaiyuan Shopping Mall, this time through some of the underground pedestrian passages. I was astonished to see a whole series of lighted billboards for cosmetic surgeons, something else that would have been unimaginable when we were last here in 1988. China had come a long way. For the better?
The Kaiyan Shopping Mall was even more impressive inside than I’d imagined: a multistory cathedral of consumerism far fancier than any mall I could think of in the States. My mind was blown, from the endless parade of international goods to the badminton demonstration in the basement.
I walked back to the hotel, recording a few more street scenes. More evidence that China had changed dramatically in the two decades since we’d last been there. I came across a real estate display promoting some new mega-project. It seemed to me the buildings were superimposed on the skyline of Chicago. Watch out, Chicago.
While I did my wandering, Rick, Faith and the girls bicycled around Xian’s ancient city walls. I wish I could have done some of that as well but I was very happy to have had time on my own.
That evening I think we all succumbed to travel fatigue and pent up jet lag. We enjoyed a western dinner at the hotel’s Italian restaurant (pizza for the girls, as I recall) and called it a night. Tomorrow would be a big day with the terra cotta warriors.
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