Xi’an with My Dad
Xian with my Dad was great! He gave me an insight into the history of China that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. He told me about stories from his childhood and his memories of the Xian incident where Chang Kai Shek was arrested exposing his plan to gather strength before fighting the far superior Japanese Army which set off the full fledged Japanese Invasion of China. He also provided the Quote of the day as we were driving in a tour van. He looked around and asked me, “are we in Chinatown”? I said, well… yeah… we’re in Xian, which is a TOWN, in CHINA so technically, yes we are in a China town. He looked a little confused for a second and then laughed saying that he was thinking to himself, “why are there so many signs in Chinese”?
Xian is a huge city full of history. The first emporer of China, Qin Qi Wong, is burried here in a massive tomb filled with everything including his kitchen sink and a load of the workers that built his tomb and held the secrets to it’s booby traps. The major attraction here for me was the Terracotta Warriors. Emporer Qin commissioned a full sized army of detailed ceramic soldiers each with a different face based on the soldiers in his army that united all of China. Obviously, nobody told him that you can’t take it with you. The ego this guy must have had is unimaginable. He started building his tomb as soon as he ascended to the throne at age 13. Had he not died early as a direct result of his search for imortality, I couldn’t imagine how big his tomb would have finally been.
Since my father is 75 years old, we decided that it would be best to just book a tour package instead of going it on our own backpacker style. The first day of the tour was a bit iffy as we were jammed into a minibus with about 30 other people and hauled off to Hwashan 
about 2 hours away from Xian. 
The mountain was great and I climbed up to the West Peak at about 7000ft with some breathtaking vistas on a bright sunny day. 
Unfortunately, it was the start of all the hard pressure sales “rest breaks” that I just can’t stand. We stopped at a “pharmacy” with “doctors” running around in little white coats selling herbs, roots and dog dicks to cure all that ails you. 
Tours Suck! Although the tours did work out quite well for my Dad on the second and third day as we got a personal tour guide, unfortunately only in Mandarin. I was just along for the ride, but we were able to see a lot more with the tours including the “rest breaks” than we could have managed on our own. A couple of stores my dad and I walked straight through from entrance to exit without stopping to look at anything and still fullfilled our obligation to stop at the store. The driver didn’t even have time to park the van before we hopped back in it. The guide tried to rush me through the Terracotta Warriors in an hour and a half, but I wasn’t having any of it. 
After the tour guide jogged me through the various archeological pits, I decided to go back and take my time and look at the reason I had come to Xian
, especially since I found out that there wasn’t anything else left on the days itinerary except some bullshit packaged goods factory. I swore off tours that include these waste my time shopping trips. I told the girl that even if there was something that I wanted at the price I wanted to pay, I wouldn’t buy even a bottle of water from a forced stop shop. If stupid tourists would just boycott buying crap they didn’t need on these tours, they’d go out of business and we wouldn’t have to go there anymore. PLEASE STOP BUYING ANYTHING FROM THEM!!! I said if there were just a tour that didn’t have these stops, I’d pay more for it. Little did I know, I would go on just such a tour to the “secret” Great Wall just a couple weeks later at quite a hefty total price.
Tags: Travel
Kane
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