XI'AN: THE CITY WALL and THE MUSLIM MARKETPLACE - videos added 6.28

Let me just say this:  Seeing this wall, walking along the top of it, seeing the cut outs for the archers, I could only think of all movies I had seen where the city walls were being laid siege by some barbarian forces.

There are a number of city walls in Xi'an.  I don't know if they are all connected, but these century old walls were shut tight at night and the city walled in for protection, and then opened during the day.     The first walls were built a century or two BC but the current walls were begun in the 13th or 14th centuries by the Ming dynasty.

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It is still raining. Lucas has bought the tickets to climb the city wall.


     

  a sundial at the base of the wall, does us little good  on this day. sundial at the base of the wall, does us little good  on this day. 

 Here is the wall and the parapet from which archers could fire at the intruders.   Notice at the bottom of the wall, where it joins with the walkway, the holes where water could flow out or (in my movie imagination), hot oil could be poured on those attempting to storm the walls.
And on the other wall, there is a series of posters that describe the ways in which invaders could attempt the storm the walls or even break them open.  (This wall , according to Wikipedia) wall "measures 13.7 kilometres (8.5 mi) in circumference, 12 metres (39 ft) in height, and 15–18 metres (49–59 ft) in thickness at the base."^[1]

                            

 This is not a city street; this is the top of the wall, as it stretches out to the eastern horizon.   It's wide enough for vehicles to drive. Above is a view of the city looking from the top of the wall.

 After the wall, it was later afternoon, and after a short rest, (we had walked 15,000 steps already) I headed out to find a snack or dinner.   Where was I going?  To the Muslim marketplace.   Just a few blocks from the hotel, it turned out to be most eye-opening and fascinating.   In China, Xi'an may have the largest number of Muslims outside of Xinjiang province.  The Muslims arrived in Xi'an early, and have been part of the city for twenty centuries.   They have intermarried but as a group seem to have remained separate.  There is a Moslem mosque, which I did not find in my walk the next morning.  But this night I found an alley of gift shops and then a street of food shops.   It's where I found my dinner.

               I walked through this area, turned left and then right, and down another street looking at shops that sold clothes, jewelry, leather, you name it;  when I stopped at one, I bought some t-shirts, and asked the guy where I could find food.  Turn left, he said, as he pointed to the edge of his shop.  There, I saw a dark passage, who no light except that coming from the street I was on.  Really?  I asked.  Yes.  Down there, he said.   So I hoofed it down the alley, and finally, toward the end, there was a little light.




                         

              

 When I came out the other side of the alley, I was in a street full of people and life, of pounding, and smells of food.   I walked up the road, looking for place I thought had non-spicy food, and back down again.  When I found a place and entered, I took the photo below of people outside waiting to buy a little bun stuffed with meat (like a mini-hamburger.)

I pointed at a picture and asked for a bowl.  35 Y.

 I thought it was meat and pasta, but I found out the next day, it was bread!  Hot, and filling.

There must have been 5 -10 shops with someone outside pulling dough like this guy is doing.  Lucas told me the next day, that they keep pulling the dough (it looks like at taffy pull), until it becomes stiff.   They bake it into a cake.
But the pull itself is something to watch, since the puller may run out into the street until the dough stretches and sags and almost touches the ground, at which point he swings it up into the and runs back to hook the middle of it and pulls it out again.  It's quite a show.

                                                                    Some shops sell meat; displayed raw and then cook it.

After I finished eating, I walked back the other way and found a road that turned left toward my hotel.  It was full of more shops, of places to eat and gifts.  Many women were clearly Muslim in dress.

The next morning I set out the other way from the hotel, intending to find another city wall that Lucas said I could find walking to what I think was the east.   But after a few blocks I noticed signs of another market, so I turned right and down a street to discover I was in a continuation of the market from the night before, but this time it was on the other side of the hotel.

I can't say the business was good because there were so many shops and so few shoppers, but this street and the cross streets seemed fully occupied by meat and vegetable vendors.  Later, I saw another street that was again full of gifts.   They all seem connected by a series of
roads that cross at right angles.  At one point a sign suggested a mosque was a right turn after a fairly long walk, but I never did see the mosque.  But I did see plenty of shops, and a lot of traffic in an old section of town that looked like Xi'an 80 years ago, or maybe even a hundred years in the past.

I asked what those large oval pieces were.   Lucas said they were ox liver. 

 Whatever one shops sells, so does another.

I always talk about China driving and drivers.  Well, check these out:

This looks like the stuff they use to make the roast mutton spine I had in Beijing.

 After my morning walk through the Muslim market, I met up with Lucas, who took me to  lunch, back where I had walked the night before.  Past where I had eaten dinner, to the bottom of the street, and a left until we came to this place.

And he ordered what he had promised me.  However, he was a little disappointed when I showed him what I had eaten the night before while we waited for our food.

Yes, like have wonton over wonton, I had spoiled his surprise by having ordered the soup the night before.   But I learned what I thought was pasta was steamed bread torn into small shreds and cooked with meat.  The real treat, however, was the condiment.  A plate of sweet picked garlic.  Wow.  Eat a clove and take a bite of soup....,or should I say, a "slurp" of soup, because that was how we were supposed to eat it with chopsticks and no spoon!

        

 Above are the cooks; and below is the front of the restaurant.

Next stop:  The airport, and I was on my way back to Shanghai.