Tuesday 11th November 2014
Xi’an City Walls – The Grand New World Hotel
Tang Dynasty Show
5.15am one day in November – gosh, our alarm is getting earlier, not quite sure what day it is … Yes I do, it is November 11th, Remembrance Day.
Our driver arrived promptly and we were soon on our way to Beijing West train station. Traffic was free flowing and we thought that perhaps we could have had an extra half hour or so in bed. It crossed our minds that perhaps the guide had arranged the early pick up time of 6am so that the driver could also go to his day job! Our train wasn’t due to depart until 8.10am.
The Chinese have a bad habit of clearing their throats loudly and spitting and unfortunately they really don’t care where they do this! Apparently before Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympics the government tried to discourage the population from doing this but from our experience, this horrible habit continues. Even here inside the station’s clean concourse we hear what is to our western ears the disgusting noise and then we see someone walking over to spit in the bin. It’s not just the men either I remember when we were at the Great Wall seeing a pretty young woman and I was thinking how nice she looked when suddenly she hacked loudly and spat right in front of us. This is one thing that we definitely won’t miss!
We are catching a bullet train to Xi’an, home of the famous Terracotta Army. The train is very sleek. It is clean and comfortable, hot water is available in the buffet car and many people have brought noodles or other snacks and most carry small flasks.
The journey to Xi’an was scheduled to take a little over five hours and cover 1100 kilometers. We relaxed, dozed, and enjoyed the ever-changing scenery. New cities were being built every few miles; groups of grey dismal tower blocks were being constructed. There were hundreds of them. Between these huge building sites we spotted a female deer and a stag near a river, and saw many people working on the land.
A digital display at the front of each carriage, showed the train’s current speed. The fastest was 302 km per hour – Dave and I think that the top speed reached on the Moscow to St Petersburg train (which we travelled on last year) was 200 km per hour.
Our guide Jessica greeted us immediately after we had cleared security at Xi’an’s railway station. We followed her to the car park where our vehicle and driver were waiting. Jessica informed us that as the schedule said, we would drive directly to the city and walk or bicycle around the city walls. She also advised us that we would be going to the Dumpling Dinner and Tang Dynasty Show that evening. We mentioned that according to our itinerary the show was scheduled for the following day but she explained that as it was low season there were only two or three performances each week. This was fine with us.
The city’s walls cover a distance of 13km; we walked for maybe an hour or so. We were pleased and relieved to find our guide very pleasant and informative, a complete contrast to the previous guide. Apart from telling us about the city of Xi’an, she chatted generally. She told us that she has a 13-year-old son, who has to leave home each day at 6.40am to travel to school and that he does not return home until 8pm. He then has homework to do which takes him until midnight to complete. He then has to be up again at 5.30am the following day.
On a weekend, Jessica’s son has extra lessons in maths and Chinese. The schooling has to be paid for and depending on the school there can be between fifty and seventy pupils in a class. An examination has to be taken every week and our guide proudly told us that her son is usually between 7th and 10th in his class. It is not unusual for her to receive up to ten texts per day from teachers, advising her of ways that she can help her son to improve or to report how he is behaving.
We enquired about the one child policy and she said that the policy has eased now. Apparently if a husband and wife have no siblings they are permitted to have two children, if however either one of them have a sibling they can only have one child. She believes that most folk are happy with one child, as schooling and healthcare are expensive.
Petrol in China costs 7 Yuan a litre, which is the equivalent of 70 cents (Euros) so a lot cheaper than ours, which is currently about 1.66Euro.
We enjoyed the walk along the ancient capital’s wall. The chat was very informative and gave us an insight into family life in China.
We were taken to our hotel. It was 4.30pm and we were being picked up again at 6.20pm to go to the show so we would have time to unpack a few bits and get showered and changed. I had a strange feeling when we entered the reception of the huge multi storied hotel; I mentioned that I hadn’t even seen the name of the hotel and that we could be anywhere. We were in fact in the 4* Grand New World Hotel, not the Grand Noble that we had specified and which was on our paperwork and also on the application for the Chinese Visa. Pete double-checked the paperwork and later informed Jessica that we were indeed in the wrong hotel. She was amazed, was this a loss of face? She promised to inform her office while we were in the theatre.
The theatre was built especially to perform the Tang Dynasty Show to tourists. Taking this into consideration we thought that it was quite impressive.
The Dumpling Dinner was served before the show commenced and we were served no less than 16 courses of dumplings. They were in different shapes – ducks, flowers and vegetables. Each course had different fillings – chicken, prawn, and various vegetables.
The show was good. There were singers, dancers and acrobats. They were all very entertaining. The costumes were colourful and very detailed. The stage backdrops were lovely and showed amongst other things different scenes of China. We felt that the whole show was professionally produced. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. It was nice to sit and relax, have a meal and be entertained!
As we drove to and from the theatre, Jessica pointed out both the Drum and Bell Towers. Both structures were colourfully illuminated.
We returned to our hotel, which is huge, impersonal and modern. Our room is large clean and comfortable, so although not our chosen hotel, everything is fine.
Joyce the China Links Manager from the Beijing office telephoned us to apologise. She told us that we were in the wrong hotel due to an error on her part. She offered to move us the following day to the Grand Nobel Hotel. I explained that while we were disappointed, we didn’t want to waste our time moving hotels.
(We were only a little disappointed that the hotel was situated a long way from the Muslin Quarter).
Joyce said that as compensation for her error she would upgrade us to a river view room at Yangshuo and also ensure that we have the best available view in Longii. I commented that we had already requested rooms on the 3rd floor in Longii. She was not aware of this and agreed to confer with Helen (the agent in London who we had booked the trip with). Joyce said that they would also purchase tickets for us to see the famous Liu San Jie Show in Yangshuo. Anne had particularly said that she wished to see this and we had all read about it and agreed that it would be interesting to see, so we would now be going for free.
lindaruddstravels.com 