Point Profess Your Excellency Seat! - Xi'an, China

plinko · #1 Posted: **Dec 9, 2006, 10:16 AM**

Ahh Xi'an, an ancient city undergoing mass growing pains. An intact (albeit renovated and rebuilt) city wall, amazing museums, and a pure demonstration at what happens when you introduce the automobile to a city not really prepared for it. I highly recommend it to anybody headed to Beijing or Shanghai (IIRC it's a 120 minute flight to Beijing). The terra-cotta soldier museum is absolutely surreal. I didn't spend a great deal of time there, but I certainly had a very good time.

I don't have alot of skyline shots and the air quality is absolutely vile...but I did manage to snap a few photos along the way...

Lost in Translation?

Nice air quality...

Quake damage?

BRICK...house...

Interesting cemetary...

Big Goose Pagoda

At the Emporer baths...

Legions

Useless, but awesome

The hospital

Don't fuck with Qi

It takes a village

Fishy!

Better light

great, but not the GREAT wall

Mass transit

Decorative

Urban renewal

'We have to walk HOW far?!?'

Impregnable

Berlin-esque

Corner

Modern

Contrast

Inner-urban

Outer-urban

Traffic

Human scale

Lookout

Grow the skyline

Rooftops

Bring me down

Infill

Gateway

Dusk

Bell Tower

Xianyang International Airport (clean, easy and modern terminal)

My ride...China Eastern served me well on my trip...

fflint · #2 Posted: **Dec 9, 2006, 10:22 PM**

Amazing. I *so* want to see the Chinese cities.

Awesome.

Sacto · #3 Posted: **Dec 9, 2006, 11:06 PM**

Great!

urbanflyer · #4 Posted: **Dec 10, 2006, 12:11 AM**

Another stupendous thread.

How does it feel to view the thousand soldiers for the first time??

sbarn · #5 Posted: **Dec 10, 2006, 12:16 AM**

Thanks for the tour... I visited Xi'an about 2 years ago. The air quality was equally (and disturbingly) as awful as your visit. Interesting place to visit, wouldn't ever want to live there...

Thanks for sharing!!

giovanni sasso · #6 Posted: **Dec 10, 2006, 12:39 AM**

intense. the "gateway" shot with the sun poking through the haze is pretty great.

well done, pinko.

plinko · #7 Posted: **Dec 12, 2006, 9:23 AM**

*threads that go bump in the night*

I really do wish I'd spent more time in Xi'an. I went just for the soldiers and found that there's much more to offer within the city itself (particularly the city wall).

The soldiers were absolutely surreal, and while I know you can see them on TV or in museums (or I'm told also at DisneyWorld), there really is no substitute for being in that huge hangar of a building and looking out over them.

I wish I had more photos to show, but that's really about it from this portion of the trip. Onward to Beijing next!

The Chemist · #8 Posted: **Dec 12, 2006, 6:14 PM**

I'm off to China next year to teach English (most likely in Shanghai), and Xi'an is one of the places on my list to visit while I'm there. Great photos! It doesn't look quite as gleaming and polished as Shanghai or Beijing, but maybe that's a good thing.

keninhalifax · #9 Posted: **Dec 12, 2006, 6:37 PM**

It seems like a world away. Thanks for these wonderful photos and the accompanying 'imformation'!

oliveurban · #10 Posted: **Dec 13, 2006, 11:53 AM**

Nice.

jiaodagongjian · #11 Posted: **Dec 13, 2006, 12:10 PM**

the Fog, isn't because of the bad air quality, but because Xi'an is in inland region, high mountains on all sides ,the clouds is very thick, this is the natural phenomena

M II A II R II K · #12 Posted: **Jul 19, 2008, 3:43 PM**

Never heard of this place.

Interesting tour nonetheless with it's numerous sites.

Kingofthehill · #13 Posted: **Jan 10, 2009, 4:29 PM**

Impressive.

How long were you in China for?