May 22, 2005 Xi'an: Museum of History, Forest of Stone-Steles Museums

We started in the morning at the Xi'an Museum of History. Of course Xi'an, or Chang'an as it was called in ancient times, had a long historical period with evidence through the Shang, Han and Tang dynasties among others. We were able to visit a great number of ancient artifacts that have been recovered from the surrounding area.

In front of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an

After a dinner of typical Chinese food in town we went to the "forest of stone" at the steles museums. This is a wonderful set of buildings which house many of China's ancient books written in stone, just think of walking through rooms with the words of great authors written on the stone walls. They also included many artistic works in the stone walls as well. I had my picture taken with a sculpture of Lao Tzu.

We finished the day by going to the Tang Paradise Lotus Park. We were able to explore the park which is a beautiful lake and hill setting. It includes a shopping area where we saw many items for sale.

The highlight of the park is the play, "Dream Back to the Tang Dynasty". The play was a dream to watch. It was full of the imperial romance of the time, the military excellence of the Tang and the Silk Road idea of the exotic. The music was great and the costumes were very colorful. After the play we came down front to have our pictures taken with some of the cast. We had another great dinner and went to see the park's water and laser light show. It started to rain a bit so we decided to cut it short and got back to the hotel. Gao Huiying and I spent a short time trying to get some of the days recorded again, but I am afraid I did not do as well as before due to being more tired than I had expected.

Previous　Next