Saturday, 20th April, 2013.
Still in a daze after the magnificent experience of seeing the Terracotta Warriors, we drove back into Xī’ān.
The Chinese would do well as removalists in Australia. Or couriers.
In the centre of Xī’ān stands the Bell Tower, a stately traditional building, that marks the geographical centre of the ancient capital. The tower was built in 1384 by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang as a way to dominate the surrounding countryside and provide early warning of attack by rival rulers.
The wooden tower, which is the largest and best-preserved of its kind in China, is 36 metres high. When it was first built in 1384, it stood opposite the Drum Tower of Xī’ān on the central axis of the city. As the city grew, however, the geographical centre changed, so in 1582, the Bell Tower was moved a kilometre east of the original site.
On each side of the base, there is an arched door 6 metres high. In the past, vehicles were allowed to pass through the arches, but as the city has grown, the volume of traffic has become too great, so now a spacious pedestrian subway has been constructed under the tower. The entrance to the tower is from this subway.
The Bell Tower contains several large bronze-cast bells from the Tang Dynasty, while the Drum Tower contains a drum museum, and a drum show is performed there every day. Originally, a large bell was rung from the Bell Tower at dawn, while nightfall was marked by the beating of the drum from the Drum Tower.
Together, the Bell Tower and Drum Tower are symbols of the city.
The backstreets leading north from the Drum Tower have been home to the city’s Hui community (Chinese Muslims) for centuries.
The narrow lanes are full of butcher shops, sesame-oil factories, smaller mosques hidden behind enormous wooden doors, men in white skullcaps and women with their heads covered in coloured scarves.
It’s a great place to wander and especially atmospheric at night.
We walked through a vibrant Islamic food market.
One for Pedram – a fish-a-cue.
The fish is ready!
Best of all (according to Lonely Planet) is the delicious yángròu pàomó (羊肉泡馍), a soup dish that involves
crumbling a flat loaf of bread into a bowl and adding noodles, mutton and broth. Well, that might be what this is.
We’d have loved to have stayed in this teeming and exciting market for longer, and eaten there for a week, but when you’re travelling, you have to accept that you can’t do and see everything – just as you can’t take every photo you’d like.
The reason we couldn’t stay in the Islamic food market any longer was that we’d booked to go to dinner at a dumpling restaurant in the Muslim quarter. Here’s Pat standing beside a statue of a giant golden dumpling in the foyer.
It was hard to photograph the dumplings – they kept disappearing!
How could you not love something that comes in a dish like this?
Rabbit shaped dessert.
And if you were still hungry, you could stock up on the way out. We could hardly move.
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