Xi'an - 西安 - "Western Peace"

I apologize for slacking on my updates-

We've been on our "trek" for about a week now, visiting Shanghai, Beijing, and arriving in Xi'an today. These cities all have a different feel to them - Shanghai: the whirlwind of the free market and "new China." Beijing - The "center of the world" and pride of the country. Xian - the old capital before Beijing, the central hub of the Silk Road and the port of the West.

We flew from Xiamen to Shanghai and spent a few days there. I found a new hero of Chinese history - Sun Yatsen. Check him out. He had a house in Shanghai and a few guys and I toured it while we were there. Not far down the street was the place where the first Communist Party meeting was, so it was interesting to see these two places in one day.

We took the overnight train to Beijing. Taking trains makes me feel like I'm in the 1800's. I wish we would improve our train system, they're really great. While in Beijing I still felt like I was in "China," just with 15 million people. Hong Kong and Shanghai have a different feel about them. People in Beijing seem to make time for tea, and the older people make time for leisure and community, whether reciting Tang dynasty poems, singing propaganda songs about "the good ole' days," or playing hackysack (they were way better than I). Remind me to tell you about seeing Mao's body.

We traveled last night by another overnight train to Xi'an. This city still has its city wall intact, build in the Ming Dynasty around 600 years ago. Today we went about an hour and a half out of the city to see a Nestorian pagoda(Nestorians came to China around the year 600) and to see the place where Laozi allegedly wrote down his thoughts that later became the "Tao te Jing," one of Daoism's main texts. Both places were majestic and surreal.
Hope you all are doing well. I sure am.