Xi`an Trip - Part II

Xi`an Trip - Day 2
Travel to Hua Shan (Mountains)

Place: Railway Station, Xi`an. In the early morning, 5 of us headed towards HuaShan (Mountains). It was very foggy day and wasn't suitable for visiting the mountains. But we were determined to visit this place. We had very less time and trip was very well planned. Sudarsan and Kapil somehow communicated at ticket counter and got us tickets for this place. This place is a bit far from Xian City. This time Train experience was wonderful, as it wasn't the soft sleeper.

We met her in train. She is very cute and can count numbers and speaks pretty good. When one of us asked her name, she was bit confused. I think it was our tone. I am surprised, how they can identify the tone of a word.

Place: HuaShan moutains, ShanXi Province. On our way to cable car station. It was wonderful experience. All the roads are so slippery with frozen snow on road.

Start of Snow fight... Devan (Right most) was bit angry after snow fight. Someone threw snow on his head and in minutes it was all wet. :-) But It was fun playing in snow.

Place: Top of Huashan mountains. That's me, Fully prepared for my hiking. We did mange to walk on mountains.

Place: HuaShan mountains. We are climbing mountain. It one side there are huge rocks and other side there is a kilometer long ditch... Since the day was foggy, we couldn't actually feel how deep it would be. But for sure I will get the pictures from my next trip. If it was not foggy that day, I really wouldn't have dared to walk the way I did.

Place: Huashan mountains. I think we were on some huge rock on the edge of mountains. We couldnt see anything below from this point. The view was just like, one would see earth from clouds during flight journey.

Place: HuaShan mountains. The above pictures are just few to share in my blog. There is nothing I could really capture in camera.

Place: HuaShan mountains. Cable car getting lost in dense foggy. Its 10 minutes ride (one way). While going down we could really see how some part of cable and it looked almost vertical.

Place: HuaShan mountains. On our way back. We spend around 4 hours walking on mountain and came back. Next trip which I plan would involve a clear check on weather. My roommate went last month and his photos are jaw-dropping. I would like to add few here but in next blog.

Place: HuaShan mountains. Some wrong settings on my S1 IS fetched me this. I didnt notice this until I was browsing thru my collection for this post.

This mountain hiking was one of the wonderful thing in this trip. We had fun and wonderful time. I would like to visit this place with right person. :-)

Xi`an Trip - Part I

Xi`an Trip - Day 1

Place: Train z19, Non stop from Beijing to Xi`an. Subset of group in one cabin. Devan, Puneet, Sheela (Right), Jilu, Sudarsan and our Chinese friend of the day.

Many Trains in China are Non-Stop running between major cities. Specially the soft sleeper trains. These trains are faster, cleaner and very comfortable. In Each coach, there are 9 cabins and each cabin has 4 soft beds with a LCD TV and Headphones. Apart from this there are many other things provided. The interiors of train look very royal. Cost of tickets, affordable for me. But pretty costly.

Xi`an is about 1200Km far from Beijing. The Z19 train covered it in 1o hours. :-) During our journey, We played cards, watched movie on my laptop and also some talks... It was memorable journey.


Place: Terracotta warrior museum, Xi`an. The Green Ship is completely made of Jade. :-) It stands 5 - 6ft tall. The Ship was a show piece in one of the Shops, where only Jade Jewelry are sold. The sellers explained us difference between real Jade and Fake Jade. Its real hard to distinguish between real and fake one until we know the methods.
Place: Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Xi`an, Ashwin and Jilu dressed in traditional Chinese Dress.


Its is said that, each face of this pottery art soliders looks different. For my own interests, I have captured more than 50 pictures. When I came to China, to me everybody look alike, same face. But once living among these people, I could dentify the different people. Its fun to be here in China until one is bachelor.






Place: Terra-cotta Pits, Xi`an. Emperor Qin's Terra-cotta pits are the largest attendant pits located 1.5 Km east of Emperor QinShihuang's Mausoleum, Symbolizing the main defending force that guarded the capital before the emperor died. The pits were never mentioned in the historical records until pit 1 wasa discovered in March, 1974 by local farmers while drilling a well. Then Archaeolofists began the explorations and excavations. On October 1st, Emperor Qin's Terra-cotta warriors and horses museum was opened to the public.

Pit 1, the largest pit is a subterranean earth-and -wood structure. It measures 230 mtes long from east to west and 62 meteres wide from north to south. Its assumed that more tan 6,00 pottery warriors and horses were unearthed from this pit. All the statues are big in life-size and ezquisitely made, representing high technology in chinese sculptural history. They are reputed as the "Eighth wonder of the world". The Excavation of the terra-cotta warriors and horses provides extremely valuable data for research of chinese ancient politics, military affrairs, science and arts.

First attempt of Xi`an Trip

Attempt of Xi`an trip .... A wait in Airport

Place: Beijing Airport. People waiting in Terminal. Flights were delayed indefinitely due to dense fog. It wasn't our day. We made it second time by train Journey, but Nitin and Mukul couldn't make it. Sorry for them. But Xi`an is such a beautiful place.

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

Place: TAXI (TAXZI, As called my Nitin). Outside our apartment. Mukul, Leader of the day, planning as where to go and locating the place in Beijing map. Thanks to Sudarsan, who always carry one to help us locate tourist place. :-)
About: The Temple of heaven was the place where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties would worship heaven and pray for bumper crops. Built first in 1420 AD A masterpiece of the Ming and Qing Architectural art and a precious sample of China's Ancient Architecture. The Temple of Heaven is the last architectural group for worshipping heaven in the world.Temple of Heaven, Beijing. Around this structure there is echo wall (circular). The wall is constructed in such a way that sound travel along the wall and can be heard at other End. Its very clear.


Mukul sleeping peacefully. Successfully executed the plan of visiting Temple of Heaven. He is still...

Temperature on that day was just below zero.