Xian museum and Small Pagoda

We ( me and Wijbren ) have been to Xian around 3 months already. During the May holiday and mostly in our weekends we arrange to have a tour around the city, as Xian is one of the oldest capitals in china.

On day we decided to go and visit Small goose pagoda. In fact there are 2 Pagodas in Xian ,Big and Small one. It is around 2 kilometers far from center of city.

This pagoda as other Pagodas is a symbol of peace and dignity in Xian .In fact it was built on 15 storeys in Tang Dynasty but due to an earthquake in 1556 ,2 floors were collapsed .It has a brick ,pentagon shape structure.
It was hard to climb up as too many people at the same time are trying to reach to the top and you have pass though a narrow dark tunnel, but the eye-birds view was totally amazing.






Inside the Pagoda the area which is around 5000 meters,as you can see so many silk shops, painting, calligraphy and Chinese paper cutting .

Moreover there are few places you can sit by side of bamboo trees and have your tea ,in fact there is no tea houses there,which I wish there were some.

Actually Wijbren was trying to find something for his Mum there, and I was looking and chatting and basically mumbling Some Chinese words to the shopekeeper inorder to get some discounts.



A lot of Chinese have this habit to boost you and in fact praise you and say “oh! Your Chinese is so good”. Well it is part of their culture, as they usually ask you we you are from and what you do in China and so on…


On the West part of building you can visit the Xian Archeological Museum which has 2 floors and has 2 exhibition halls which shows the history of the city and how it built and shows the city wall and other surrounding areas which grew during the time and the basement( first floor)shows the treasure and underground treasures.

I ALWAYS HATE BEING SO LONG IN Museums and in fact always be curious to get in and see what is inside.

In fact that day was like a short ,nice tour .It is good sometimes being far from other responsibilities and hang around and see somehistorical,cultural places and have a nice picnic.

My sixth Birthday in China

My Sixth Birthday in China:

My Birthday is on 23 of March and this year, as I was thinking before and planning few months ago .
I could be at home(Iran),which my plan ttally chage due to my new postion and new job and travelling to a new city.
The point is every year I passed my Birthday somewhere in China ,just 3 years I was in Hangzhou and every year there was totally different as I had new colleagues coming and going and I had different plans for my birthday ,like dancing being in pub or choosing my special restaurant..

Celebrating Birthdays in a tradition between every nation .But I can say it is completely personally as some people even from the same country have different attitude toward it, celebrate it or not.
I know some people say well we are too old for this shit now and some want on purpose to forget it as they think they are getting old or somebody might ask their ages.
.
In fact I personally think your age is the age you feel inside and not necessary your Birth certificate age. They are so many I have seen in middle age ,really healthy, do sports regularly and have healthy diet ,a great partner who cheer them up and lovely life and feel great every year that pass.
In fact that effects your body metabolism and your mind like a therapy.
Having a person understand you and make your life more bright is a special Birthday gift In fact.

I do believe specially for women having a perfect lover, partner who care enough makes them much happier and younger every year than`pass by.

To me, Birthday is an important issue and always will be .
I would like to have it as I want to remember the day I was born and enjoy it with my beloved ones, as my family ,close friends and my partner from now on.

Anyway this year in Xian I had 2 birthday as we celebrate one week early to be in a fancy, exclusive restaurant and in the next week on my real birth day we had a nice lunch in Korean restaurant and I received a beautiful ring and Wijbren officially proposed for marriage.

Our trip to Tai Bai Shan,winter 2009

There are two mountain ranges around Xian which both of them are around 2 hours by bus far from Xian , the same distance in 2 different directions.

We decided in one of our short holidays or better to say our long weekends (3 days off) go there.
We found out there is a main bus station beside train station located in the center of city and by taxi takes 15 minutes to get there.

We( me and wijbren) were so panic and wanted to be punctual in matter of not losing the bus ,so we woke up early and arrived there 7:30 ,as one of the locals suggested. Well as things works like that in China, we had to wait there for another hour till bus arrive to the station and enough passengers then get ready to go.

Well ,somehow we managed to start our trip 8.30ish and it took approximately 2 hours we arrived to the bottom of the mountain. All the way we passed from farm fields and fruit trees. Actually around Xian is pretty green.
The way coming to Xian we were sitting on the train and had plenty of chances to look around and from 3 hours before then arriving to Xian districts we saw so many fields, paddies and cultivated areas.

As I have been to so many mountains in China I knew how it works and I told Wijbren don’t worry we have to climb from bottom to top, as there are stairs always to climb up.

In China mountains are not just like Iran’s mountains which definitely need equipments and tools to climb up .In fact at least after 500 meter high ,if you are not a regular climber or not having proper equipments and boot not good enough you won’t be able to climb.
But surprisingly we discovered that it is 45 Km zigzag way.

Which means at least one day completely walking ,more than 12 hours. Sound terrifying. Well they has some taxis waiting for costumers as hunting fish .I tried to ignore them and deal with entrance get and pay the entrance fee ,but finally we had to get taxi up to be able to reach to the top .

I have been to Mogshan Mountain, Tian mu Mountain and Yellow mountain. In China and all the way we could climb on foot or use cable car and as a record I should mention this Mountain was different.

Anyway ,By taxi it took 4 hours to reach up and some people get car sick the mid-way cause is so high and all the way is spiral and rocky and pretty shit in winter.

As this mountain is called Tai Bai Shan, which means” white snowy mountain” ,you can imagine from 1500 meter up we could still see snow on the way up and it was April already.
The way top we stopped few laces and we took some nice photos and on the last station taxi waited for us for 2 hours and we managed to climb a bit on 3700 meters height which was nice though ,but some part was unfortunately really slippery ,due to un melted snow and icy in fact and too dangerous to walk even one by one step.


Any how we had some snacks and asked the taxi drop us some where we could get some food. In fact in this mountain there is no restaurant or any other places to get even water, so you should be equipped completely.

We had a plan to stay there overnight ,so we asked for a room form the only restaurant ,hostel place ,better call it local lodge. But it was just few smelly small rooms and a shitty noodle restaurant in 2000 meter high.
They wanted to charge us a 150 Kuai per night ,so we decided we go back in the after noon and get a room on the bottom and the next day we could go for hot spring and climb a bit around.

Actually there were some places before the gate you could climb a bit and see some temples on the top of 500 meter.
And in the afternoon we got the only bus which, usually gets back to Xian around 3ish in the afternoon.