Xi'an

Xi'an the city of Emperors and ancient dynasties. A city that has reached a million inhabitants in 582 making it the biggest metropolis at the time. Xi'an is the beginning and end of the silk route, a place of ancient trade and a meeting point of many cultures. It is a mystery how so few people have even heard of this magnificent place. For us it was a city full of great food, busteling, charming alleyways and ancient history. A mixture of all the aspects we love about travelling and one of our favourite stops so far. But first we needed to get there.

We left our travel account of the second sun of the sixth moon in the lovely town of Zhangjiajie. The way to the city of Emperors is long so we rose before the crack of dawn to make our way to the speed worm hub. Our worm was due to depart at eight and a half bells, but in the land of big cities and punctual speed worms it is advisable to reach the meeting point an hour before taking off. To reach to meeting hub we decided to take the local way of transportation. We were told that the distant cousin of the knight bus would leave sometime between six bells and the following half bell. In the manner of our home country we were there early and to our delight found a large metal transportation device waiting for us. On board of this we reached the speed worm meeting hub in just 40 min.

Our first quest at the meeting hub lead us to the valuable parchment office. We had already secured our invisible valuable parchments over the invisible library of all things in Middle Earth at the same time as we acquired the ones for the journey to Zhangjiajie. Sadly we mixed up a 0 and an O in the passport number of Artey what had led to a lot of confusion on our previous journey on the speed worms in the land of walled cities and gold jewelry. We knew the same mistake was on Arteys ticket of this journey so we were determined to settle the issue in our spare time before our worm would collect us. The lady sitting behind the glass on the valuable parchment office was neither gifted with the strongest weapons for a battle of wits nor with the ability to speak the language of the people of Britain. After a bit of confusion she understood our problem but told us to just explain it to the person at the entrance of the speed worm meeting hub. Just for clarification your ticket for a speed worm in the land of dumplings and strict regulations is linked to ones passport, to enter the meeting hub and the speed worm one has to show their passport at least twice and few inhabitants of this land have the ability to speak to us. So, to have to explain to every person on our way why the system can't find a valuable parchment for Artey's Passport seemed like a huge challenge, but we don't shy away from a good challenge. The first person in the entryway of the hub was very confused but found a booking for two tickets that included Sesy's Passport and one look at us made her realize that we belong together, so she lead us past the first barrier. At the second barrier Sesy went first and then when Artey's passage got denied everyone looked confused but decided that the system was just confused by our passports from distant lands. With so many steps of getting into a speed worm the workers seemed very happy to put of the responsibility of dealing with us to the person in front or behind them in the system. With the help of "If there was something wrong with their tickets someone else would (have) stopped them" we made our way into the speed worm and to the waiting area of the next meeting hub, where we needed to wait for our second speed worm of the day. There we ate some noodles prepared with hot water and our preboiled eggs for lunch. The guard who secured the barrier we needed to cross to get to our next speed worm was very convinced that our strange passports and his security system didn't match and just looked at our booking on our magic pocket boxes to make sure we were entering the right speed worm. The speed worm raced over the land and we sat down comfortably, working on our to do list, watching the epic battle of the five armies and eating another hot noodle soup for dinner. 11 h after entering the first speed worm we arrived in Xi'an. A bit tired we first secured some seats for our journey on, three days later. Then we made our way to our inn. Maps.me told us exactly how to navigate the complicated network of underground metal snakes but to our confusion we did not enter at the subterranean station maps.me told us we would find next to the speed worm meeting point. Overall it took us a bit longer than expected but we found the right place to exit the subterranean transportation network. At this point in time the sun had already descended behind the horizon and we were ready to get to bed. Luckily the exit from the underground metal snake network was just 10 min walk away from our inn and on the same street. On the way we brought 7 l of water to refill our empty storage. Maps.me told us we needed to turn around one corner. As neither one of our magical pocket boxes could locate us we found the right corner by looking at the street names. 10 min of walking later we found the right corner but not our inn. After some fruitless searching for house numbers we started to ask around. Just as a remider we had travelled long and far at this point and were carrying around all our possessions and 7 kg of water. In the end we found our inn at the end of a very long passage in house Nr. 233, courtyard 8-1-101. The quality of our establithment was more in the like of the hogs head, than the three broomsticks, but we have stayed in worse inns and you doesn't see the dirt on the bathroom floor if you just don't turn on the light.

3.6

That day we awoke ready to explore the very old city of Xi'an. The first challenge was breakfast. We still had some leftover instant oats form the lands of Middle Earth to transform them into a good breakfast we just needed some hot water. The kettle in our inn was probably using a candle to heat up the water for it took aged to boil. Whoever placed the heating charm on that device needs some extra lessons with Prof. Flitwick. But in the end we had a decent breakfast and set out in the direction of the city center. To reach that place of wonder we first had to cross the city wall. The city wall is an impressive momument contructed in the Ming dynasty (Ming were famous for their white and blue Ming vases) in 1370. Our first stop was a Tibetan Buddhist Temple, which was very impressive.

Then we wandered through the narrow winding streets of the Muslim quarters. Oh what a place that is. If someone were to design the perfect place for the two of us to explore they would end up with the muslim quarters of Xi'an. The small streets are lined with street food stalls, small restaurants and shops selling all kind of goods. That is also the point where we truly realized that Xi'an was the end of the silk road. We have travelled quite a bit along this ancient trading route and if was wonderful to find mantis, non and even something that resembled the bread that was typically found in Khiva, Uzbekistan. We spend our time wandering through the streets trying all the different food that the merchants offered in small bites to the bypassers. We watched people pulling noodles, folding dumplings, chopping chilly for fresh chilly oil and stamping bater for rectangular sweets (don't ask me what they were made out of some had nuts in them other dried fruits). We also got ourselves some Jae (Tea-Juice-magic potion) and ate green noodles and fresh hand made noodles (very hard to eat as they were 4 cm thick) everything was delicious!

Then we left the muslim quarters to visit the Bell and the drum tower, both old and impressive buildings. The rest of the afternoon we spent in the Xi'an Museum, which was more of a park/temple area. In the late afternoon we made our way back to the area of our Inn. There we ate dinner and headed to bed.

4.6

The next morning arrived. Having learned from the previous day we packed our bags and broke our fast on the way. We got two chinese pancakes filled with eggs, crispy somethings and either turnip or potato. After a subterranean metal snake and an hour long bus ride we arrived at the army of terracotta warriors. The area consists of three pits where an army made out of baked earth could be seen. The terracotta army consists out of more that 6000 warriors and horses pulling carriages. They are ready to fight the wars of their king, the first emperor of the land of noodle soups and squatting toilets in the after life. The first emperor was also known as the dragon emperor. He was the first person to unite the waring fractions and set the boarders of the land we still know today. The dragon emperor of the Qin dynasty was a highly ambitious and successful person but he was also paranoid and probably had an ego that was nearly as big as his kingdom. So, to continue his rule in the afterlife he commanded that an army made out of terracotta should be build for him. Every warrior has a unique face, is life size and once had a intricatly painted armor. For more then 2000 years the army was buried and forgotten until it was found by chance and is now slowly being uncovered. Many of the warriors are still waiting to be freed from their prison of earth and mud and get reassembled as they have shattered into small pieces. It is a very impressive thing to see. After some time of exploring and marveling we got ourselves some cold noodles with sesame and chilly sauce and headed back to the city.

The rest of the day we spent once more in the muslim quarters as they are wonderful. The only better place would be if we found ourselves in the middle of the great hall of Hogwarts during the start of the term banquet. There we tried some more of the strange foods and explored some of the shops. We also acquired some fruits for breakfast and the journey on the following day.

As the sun set beneath the horizon we made our way back to our inn and packed our bags. Time passes too fast as the journey draws to a close. We are very excited for everything that is yet to come, but not ready to return home.

5.6

Our quest for the day was to reach the ancient city of Pingyao. We had secured seats on the speed worm for 11 bells so we were very relaxed about starting our day. For breakfast we got a variety of steamed buns with different fillings and two eggs. After breaking our fast we packed our last bags and headed to the speed worm meeting spot. We needed to get to the meeting spot north and were still a bit confused about the two different subterranean metal snake exits leading to the speed worm point. We trusted maps.me and got to the station 50 min before departure. Trusting maps.me alone is not always the best idea for we found ourselves at the wrong meeting spot. Apparently Xi'an has two speed worm meeting hubs, both in the north of the city and maps.me did not find the right one, because there are different ways to write the Chinese names of things in English and maps.me did it differently than everyone else. Panic stricken we hurried to the nearest McDonald for these establishments are a refuge for everyone seeking connection to the library of all things. With this connection we were able to order a Didi (Chinese version of Yandex/Grab/Uber/Bolt) to the right meeting point. We had still 40 min time before our speed worm would depart from this city and according to maps.me a car would only need 20 min to reach the other speed worm meeting hub. Well, our driver was not the fastest one and traffic in a city of 10 million inhabitants is more than maps.me knows. We did not reach the right speed worm meeting hub in time. Our speed worm left Xi'an without us.

Well, no use crying over spilled potion. We bought new tickets for a speed worm that would leave 2 hours later and settled in the waiting area. There we ate the rest of the steamed buns and after a while boarded the speed worm carrying us on to the next destination. That, my dear reader is the story for the next part of our retelling.