In 2014, I had the opportunity of touring China with my mom. This was an exciting trip as both my mom and I have never been to Beijing or Xi’an, China. My parents were both born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Canada in the late 1960s. Being of Chinese descent, this trip to China was a good way to help improve my knowledge of the Chinese culture and explore several wonders of the world. I was born in Toronto, Canada. At home, I had spoken Cantonese (a chinese dialect) but was not exposed much to my Chinese heritage.
We headed Xi’an after touring Beijing for a several days. I found this trip was much more enjoyable as the tour was more relaxing than Beijing. The best of Xi’an included the Terra Cotta Warriors, sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, the Wild Goose Pagoda which was built during the Tang dynasty, the City Wall which was started during the Ming Dynasty, and the Muslim Quarter which had lots of good food shops and street foods. In the evening we enjoyed an amazing dumplings feast and watched an entertaining Tang Dynasty Cultural Show.
For our tour, we had also made a trip out to Mount Huashan, which was 120km from Xi’an. As the mountain is quite dangerous to climb, we had taken the cable-car up the mountain to the North Peak and hiked to the west and south points. Having grown up watching Chinese Kung-Fu movies in the Wuxia community, this mountain was the famous mountain that Kung Fu heroes gather to fight displaying their best swordplay skills to be the top swordsman of Wulin. The competition is called “Hua Shan Lun Jian”.
My suggestion for touring Xi’an is to pay more and take a smaller tour or a private tour. We had booked an inexpensive “sale” advertised tour and found that much of our time was spent at different merchandise outlets such as tea shops, silk shops, medicine shops, jade shops. They would bring us tourists there for hours, staying as long as necessary to generate sales.
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