China Ancient Trip, Day 7-8: Xi'an

It was a leisure-free & easy day on the 7th. I was half a day away presenting a conference paper at Shaanxi Hotel, 12 km to the southwest. I was all alone when my family stayed in, and I felt a bit worried, having difficulties communicating with locals. Anyway, things like this were a revelation of how much I missed my family when I simply dissipated to travel alone.

By noon, with much of the hardship of hailing a taxi and the difficulty communicating, I was safely back with my family at the hotel, and we made a comeback to the Muslim Quarter for lunch. As the day progresses into more anticipation, as we look forward to Beijing tomorrow, that afternoon we uneventfully spent that day soaking in the city life.

Our stomping ground

Yup, that is RMB 35 per person

The bell tower was erected during the Ming Dynasty.

Could it be the biggest bell in the world?

Nicely done, architecture.

He used to be a scholar during Tang Dynasty

Is Nu'man having a bad mood?

I bought one of the local delicacies made from sticky rice.

When I was about to do my planning for a trip from Xi'an to Beijing, the best way to experience it was by high-speed train. We had booked train tickets to Beijing through China-DIY Travel, as it would be almost impossible to buy the tickets online. It's only in Chinese and only accepts Chinese bank cards. In fact everything was in Chinese characters when I received the booking receipt. Anyhow, China-Travel DIY really did an awesome job! Everything comes down to detail and simple instruction, from 'where and how to pick up the ticket' and 'how to read the ticket' to even 'how to navigate the train station'!

G88 was our train to Beijing!

Tickets come with goodies

Do's and don'ts while you are on board

It was cozy, wasn't it?

Whoaaa... We're reaching 300 km/h.

Yet another drama that we went through when we reached Beijing. The driver arranged by Maggie was supposed to meet us at the Beijing West Railway Station exit. Maggie did send an email saying that the driver will be late due to the traffic. Undoubtedly we don't have the internet access, and feeling something wrong might happen, we started looking for ways to go to our hotel. Back then, we didn't do any internet surveying or anything about the train station, not even the metro map. We came out from the underground station and tried to hail a taxi, but to no avail; the traffic made things even worse. We rendezvoused at the platform, hoping that the driver would be there at the exit we were supposed to meet at. By God's grace, after almost 30 minutes of uneventful moments, a guy approached us and it was the driver! Sigh...

We reached the Emperor Hotel by 7pm. The hotel is located just beside the Palace Museum and near Jingshan Park. Judging from what was happening once we arrived in Beijing, that day went off with what we could say was the most impressive hotel we had booked. Apart from the great location, it's a really spacious room and bath with a modern-look design. In fact, the hotel room was given a name with my name in Chinese!

An awesome hotel's welcoming desk

Let us do some googling

These loungers were in our room!