Tourist Attractions in Xi'an

Walking in central Xi’an looks simple, and it is, but not as much as it seems. The central tower, well illuminated at night looks the same from all the four angles, and walking around is a large and tricky way, with underground passages and wide steps.

When we thought that he had done half turn and espected to be walking down to the hotel, we really had turned only 90º and we were displacing from the hotel. Nothing that a taxi couldn’t resolve, but, remember: your hotel’s name always written in a paper.

The Feng Shui Museum at the City Wall is quite disappointing, and no one is immune. I was with a small chinese tour group, and I also saw several other chinese tour groups, and they tried to pull the same crap on every one of us. They give you a guide and take you to a room, where the "Feng Shui Master" educates you about Feng Shui--showing a few pictures of buildings with bad feng shui and some with good feng shui. Then, they show you a "Real Regal Antique Ming Dynasty Dragon Horse" and invite you to put luck into your pockets. This is pretty cute and fun. What's not cute is when they corner you in a room filled with trinkets and encourage you to buy exorbitantly expensive "jade" dragon horse figurines. They tell you about how it "supports the museum" (which is part of the wall, which receives government funding) I got out without buying any.

The kicker? There's nothing else to the museum but a series of rooms all with identical "real antique Ming Dragon Horses" and photographs of buildings... hmmmm

Unique Suggestions: Enjoy the lovely historic architecture, watch the groups go in and out, and don't buy the figurines. If you want to support the museum and the wall (and maybe score some good fortune), drop a few RMB into the dragon horse drop box.

We arrived at Xian airport with about 1 1/2 hours to spare for our internal flight to Guilin, thinking that was ample time. However ... the queue for check-in was a mile long and going very slowly, and it took us almost an hour to reach the check-in desk. By this time we were quite flustered and anxious not to miss our flight. The lady at the check-in desk said there was something wrong with our tickets, something to do with wrong passport numbers. She spoke very little english, so we were getting quite frustrated. She sent us over to the China Southern desk, the lady there told me I had to go to line-up No. 72. By this time I was very angry and getty anxious. I stopped an airport guy who looked like he might speak english, quickly told him what was happening and he ushered us into the VIP check-in line. He clearly knew I was NOT HAPPY about what was going on, and we never did get an exact reason for the problems. We had enough time to check in (my suitcase was 3kg overweight!) go to the toilet and then get on the plane.

So, I guess this is just a warning that even though most people will tell you that check-in for domestic flights is only one hour, perhaps it is safer to allow a little bit longer for unexpected delays and problems!

I've seen some messages about pick pocketing and thefts at these areas.
Just to let people know that, right now (Mar'2009), there are not much to care about in these areas. I've walked a lot through these places and neither saw nor experienced any of such cases.
Things may have changed.

Unique Suggestions: Obviously, the traditional care of not walking through desert alleys, or not staying where you feel unconfortble should still be exercized.

Leaving your valuable documents (passports, id's, etc) locked in your cases, in the best hotel you can pay, is a way to go. As per I could see, chances of you being hold by the police or authority for documents are null. Keep a copy in your wallet, instead.

As part of our trip to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors, our tourguide took us to a factory that manufactured replicas of the terra cotta warriors. It was a waste of 30 minutes. The factory was basically an excuse to sell souvenirs to tourists. It's hard to pack a terra cotta warrior in your luggage, so we skipped buying one, even though we were repeatedly told that "This factory produces the only officially sanctioned replicas, and the other ones that you can buy from other vendors are of inferior quality!" We would have gladly paid the guide a few RMB to skip this tourist trap.

We as well as our children noticed people tried to rob our wallets on the stairs to and from the underground tunnels at the Bell Tower. When we looked at them the quickly dissapeared.

Unique Suggestions: Watch your wallet, don't put in your back pocket. They also tried to unzip a bag.

If you want to visit Terracotta Army, Huashan Mountain, Famen Temple or Qianling Tomb, you can get on the public bus in the Railway Station Square.

The buses are painted in green, paying for the tickets after you get on the right bus. The mini buses belong to private, they will add some fake places and shopping spots on the journey, nobody enjoys that.

Take note when at or around the train station, there are many people who will approach you for transportation. Some of them are very persistent...not a good day to start actually, especially early in the morning in the biting cold...