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Sunday 13 May - Up at 0500 with sunrise with
little haze out window. Fine breakfast again at 0600- Bags packed and left in
hall outside room. Vantage takes care of moving all luggage from one hotel to
the next through airports. A great convenience. Unfortunately there was no time
to attend Mass and see one of the Catholic Churches. During the drive to the
airport we were able to see some more parts
of Beijing that I wished to have been able to visit - including temples and
city fortress gate. In the airport book store I am finally able to buy a fine
book on Chinese history, but at a high price of course - 360Y when it should be
200Y. The airplane is an Airbus 320 operated by a Chinese airline. The flight
is bumpy, the cabin full of tourists. Lunch is hot meat and rice. The airport
is very modern with many expensive stores, much finer place than Dulles
airport. And of course it has many more customers. At
Xi'an Vantage again takes the bags to the
hotel, what a convenience. But we do check the luggage at the airport first as
a precaution to look for possible damage - none found. The bus drive to the
city is through extensive irrigagted fields and orchards. The earth is yellow
and fine texture. This is the soil that makes the Yellow River discharge yellow
into the sea. The modern freeways with overpasses and clover leaf intersections
that lead no where show the government is well ahead in planning for extensive
future urban development. There is much haze and the temperature is hot. As we
enter the city on a Sunday morning the traffic seems like a rush hour. It takes
5 minutes to go 2 blocks. We enter at the north gate through the Ming Dynasty
wall and drive directly south on a main street and out the south gate. Inside
the city walls the streets are laid out in conformancy with geomancy - that is
straight north-south, and east-west. We stop at the south gate and climb on the
immense city wall. The government has wisely limited the height of moden
buildings inside the city walls. There are many such tall, modernistic
buildings right outside the wall, making the contract between the two sides
quite striking.
The ANA Grand Castle Hotel is immediately
outside the gate, across the moat and a main highway. Check in at the hotel is
a model of efficiency thanks to Vantage prior arrangements. The hotel itself is
modern, built with the four sides surrounding a central atrium and all guest
rooms facing outside. Whenever there is time to spare I want to explore. So
Kelly writes detailed instructions for a taxi driver again. He takes me to the
west gate and back with stops along the walls for photography including near
the centrally located Drum Tower. Cost is 15.8 Y. I should have asked him to
stop at more locations as there was still plenty of time before dinner. The
main streets in Xi'an are impressive, wide and lined with modern, but not high,
stores, hotels and office buildings. Some combine modern glass and aluminum
with traditional Chinese archetecture in colorful entrance ways and arches and
roofs. We dress for dinner, which is at a spectacular Tang Dynasty Dinner
Theater, 75 Changan Road, Zi'an, Shaanxi. Web site
 .
Departure is at 19:10. The theater area is packed with tourists seated at long
tables. Vantage has reserved for us the best tables in the place, right next to
the stage. It is so close that I can rest my camera right on the stage itself
in order to make photos in low light without shaking. The menu consists of 6
courses plus drinks. There is musical entertainment all through the meal from
instrumentalists and singers. Then the show begins and what a show it is. There
are seven musical "acts" - with dancers, musicians and singers. The
finale features the entrance of the 'emperor' and his court who then both watch and participate in
the festivities. I am fortunate to spot a sales desk on the way out and am able
to buy a DVD of the entire performance. After returning to the hotel I walk a
few blocks to a typical grocery store to buy Cokes and water. The streets are
full, even late, with Sunday crowds and heavy traffic until after 2200. The
fortress gate and wall plus many other buildings are well lite with colorful
illumination.
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