Xi'an

Xi'an - the capital of Shaanxi province and known for the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor or the Terracotta Warriors.

I'll be frank. I didn't enjoy my visit to Xi'an.

I always feel a little guilty when I don't like a place. And I know I shouldn't!

Perhaps my displeasure with the accommodation and the fact that my camera decided to not turn on influenced my overall thoughts. But I'm inclined to think that they weren't contributing factors.


I was overwhelmed by the fact that shopping centres were on every single corner. Every. Few. Metres. I thought the price of admission to the city wall was quite expensive. As a reviewer on TripAdvisor mentioned, it is almost the same price as the Great Wall!

Plus, we walked almost 6km in the rain to visit a museum that we couldn't enter as it required prior reservation through WeChat only. My own mistake as I didn't do enough research. Although I'm sure I did see information previously that you could line up as a foreigner at the ticket office. Live and learn.

Although the highlights of the city centred around the food! On the first night, we visited the famous Muslim street (Huimin Jie) and tried traditional Xi'an street food.






Glutinous honey rice cake

Zeng Gao - glutinous rice with red jujube. I was expecting it to be a lot sweeter.
On a side street away from the main area, we stumbled upon a group of people crowded around a table. We watched as the stall owner skilly made the meat-filled flatbread, stretching out the dough so thin to create the flakey layers. Incredible! I am not entirely sure it is is called but it was very tasty.  It was similar to börek.






I also didn't realise that pomegranate was such a popular and plentiful fruit in the region!


There was this super cheap bao place near our hostel
Unsure what this was, but there was a long line and we decided to try it. Some kind of roll with fermented vegetables and crackers.




Overall, I was quite underwhelmed by the city and, with the benefit of hindsight, should have spent a day less.

For an overview of my China trip refer to this post.