Cycling on the City Walls and the Fountain Show

The top of Xian's City Walls

My legs ache a bit as I write this. Today after breakfast (and I don't think I mentioned that this hotel has the best breakfast buffet--including to Jarrah's delight French toast--of all the hotels so far) we walked the short distance to the South Gate, paid the entrance fee and climbed the stairs to the top of the city walls. Xian is a unique city in that it is still surrounded by a complete city wall which dates back to the Tang Dynasty. The walls have been renovated of course since then but they are in a remarkable condition. The perimeter of the walls is 14kms. We were told that recently there was a marathon where the competitors ran around the city walls three times. Originally we were going to walk the walls. I suggested we do one quarter of the walls each day for 4 days but that idea was blown when we discovered that we'd have to pay 4 entrance fees to do so. Instead to cover the distance we decided to hire bikes on the top of the walls and ride the complete distance. The bikes weren't expensive--40Y for a tandem and 20Y for a single bike for 100 minutes. We hired two bikes and one tandem as they didn't have any small bikes for Jade. The tandem suited her perfectly and she was able to choose whether to pedal or to put her feet on the frame and just ride. At first she found it a bit scary but then she got used to it. We had a great time riding and went over our 100 minutes by half an hour so had to pay a 30Y penalty but it was worth it. It was a great experience and we're glad we hired the bikes instead of trying to walk it. We would never have made it!

Paul and Jade on the tandem and Jarrah on the single bike with my bike in the background

Me on my bike at the North West corner of the wall

After our huge cycling effort we went to a restaurant we'd passed in the morning which had become a bit of a joke during the day because it advertised that it had coffee, pizza, steak and beer. (The kids weren't too excited about the coffee, steak or beer on offer and only mildly interested in the pizza.) We bought enough to take care of our lunch and dinner and took back to the hotel whatever we hadn't finished. Jade hardly ate any of her food. She seems to be having a funny tummy at the moment and has no interest in food. I hope she feels better soon.

Then we walked back to the hotel and rested for the afternoon in preparation to returning to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda park for the musical fountain show in the evening. Fortunately, Jade was feeling better after a rest so we all headed off and grabbed a taxi to the pagoda. We got there in plenty of time and waited for the show to start. Once again, Jade became the subject of interest of several people--she is getting tired of this especially when she doesn't feel well. A cleaning lady who was sweeping up the park came and was feeling Jade's corduroy pants and commenting on them. I think she was saying that they were thick. I asked some girls standing near us what she was saying and they tried to explain but I didn't fully understand them either--vocabulary gap strikes again! Then one of the girls said to me that Jade wasn't the same as the rest of us so I told her she was my adopted daughter. Then she asked me what ethnicity Jade was. I asked her what she thought rather than giving a straight answer and she answered 'zhong guo' (China). I said 'dui' (correct)! To get the conversation away from Jade I asked them if they were from Xian (yes) and if they'd seen the show before (yes) and how long it went (20-30 mins). Shortly after this one of the many photographers who try to sell their services came and stood right in front of us--in the fountain!!--so we moved up a bit and got away from both the cleaning lady and the girls. Yes the cleaning lady was still standing there!!!

The fountain show started a few minutes early I think and went for barely 20 mins. It was over by 8:45. It was totally worth it. The fountains in the 8--yes I counted them--tiers danced to several pieces of music including a couple of Chinese pieces, Toreador from the opera Carmen and Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.

The dancing fountains