Unidentified food on a stick

After we went to the warrior museum, we spent the night in the Muslim area right by our hostel, which was filled with the same old souvenirs in every Chinese city, but some different street food choices. We got lamb on a stick, some other random unknown food on a stick and some dumplings which were all very good. The meat and unidentified substance on the stick were incredibly spicy, and we were struggling to eat them on the street while everyone else ate them with a straight face. We still have no idea what we ate, but they were very good. The Muslim area was very popular and packed full of locals and tourists which made it very hard for us to move around, but it was a fun area to spend the night.

Unidentified food on a stick

Packed Muslim street.

The next day, we decided to take ourselves on our own walking tour of Xian. Like Pingyao, it is completely surrounded by a wall, but it is much bigger than Pingyao was. We went into the bell tower right by our hostel and also visited it's brother the drum tower which is right down the street. They were cool to go in and get a view of the city from. 

Sign as you come out of the underpass that goes around the city center.

The bell tower at night- much prettier than during the day.

Inside architecture/decoration of the bell tower.

View of the drum tower from the bell tower.

Our hostel building, seen from the bell tower.

Me and the drum tower

Joe and our hostel. 

Drum tower at night.

A few of the many many drums in the drum tower.

After the drum towers, we went back through the Muslim street to the Great Mosque, which is listed as one of the must see attractions in Xian. Despite it being relatively well known, it was almost deserted. We thought it was beautiful and interesting compared to some of the Buddhist and Taoist temples we've been to. 

Prayer hall inside the mosque.

Prayer schedule.

A weapon that was just laying around but couldn't possibly be moved due to its weight.

One of the awesome buildings in the mosque courtyard.

From the mosque, we headed to the wall to go up and see the city. Once you're up there, you can pay to rent bikes to take around instead of walking. Since it was much bigger than Pingyao's wall, we decided to go for the bikes, but didn't make it all the way around as they conveniently only give you 100 minutes, which we figured was about 20 minutes too short to really make it around comfortably. We biked around the sides of the wall for around an hour before giving them back. It was harder than we thought since it was all worn down bricks we were biking on, but it was a lot of fun and a cool way to get around the wall.

The gate we went through to get up the wall.

Cool New Years mural on the wall.

Us as warriors.

Cool lamp posts on the top of the wall. 

Another castle-like wall.

View from the top.

A couple taking their wedding photos on the top of the wall.

Cool old buildings that we saw while biking around.

Joe and his bike. 

Me on the wall. 

It was much longer than the Pingyao wall- we couldn't even see the end.

After our bike ride, we kept walking to the Xian museum which is paired with a pagoda called the small goose pagoda. When you go in, there's a food area with Muslim men cooking more meat on sticks, but this time blaring club music and dancing/singing while cooking. We got a kick out of it and watched for a while before moving on. Inside the park area where the museum is, there were lots of games and entertainment for people walking around which we think might just be for New Years. There was also a garden full of old statues, featuring our favorite lions with some hilarious facial expressions. We finally made it through to the museum and saw some more artifacts and a 3D city map like the one of Shanghai which was cool. The area was great and fun to sit and people watch in.

Dancing food area.

The pagoda.

Best buds in one statue.

CHEESE

This is my favorite expression of any statue we've seen.

Entertainers singing and dancing.

Small kids were climbing on these horses, so we figured it was OK for us to do so too.

Jade carving inside the museum.

Another great facial expression on a statue inside the museum.

Old city map of Xian, broken into different compounds.

Half man, half animal statue

 Our walking tour was a lot of fun, and we were able to take the metro back which saved us some energy. The rest of our time in Xian was spent wandering around the shopping areas and generally killing time until our flight back to Shanghai on Friday night. We were able to catch the airport bus back which saved us some money on a cab ride again. We made it back late Friday night after taking the subway for an hour and a half from the metro back to campus so we were pretty tired, but overall very happy with how our trip turned out.

Fountains outside the drum tower.

Great store name.

In our hostels restaurant- you can't see it very well but they're all picture frames with the piece of paper that comes with them still framed, we thought it was pretty funny.

A local park we went to on our last day, with kids playing in pedal boats and inflatable rollers on the water.

View from our hostel window.