Visiting Sites in Xi’an

We arrived in Xi’an near the end of the Chinese New Year holiday.  This means we have a week to settle in before school starts up again. Xi’an was the ancient capital and has many historic sites to visit.  Yesterday a guide from the school took us to see the city wall, the bell tower, the drum tower and the Muslim street market.  The city wall is 13.7 km (about 8.5 miles) in  length all the way around.   We were taught about all the engineering along the wall that made Xi’an impossible to defeat and why the wall still stands.  We then went to see the bell tower which is in the center of the city.  It is so important that the bell tower is in the center of the city that when Xi’an expanded they moved the tower so it would remain in the center.  We then went down the street to the drum tower.  In ancient times the drum tower was used to keep time.  They would strike the drums every 2 hours in a different patterns depending on the day or night.  After that we went down the Muslim street market.  On the market you can get any type of food and gift you can imagine.  You can see food being prepared right in front of you (sometimes more then you want to see)  Today was a great start to site seeing in Xi’an.  We are looking forward to the many sites we still have to see over the next 3 months in Xi’an.