Melanie Fischer

Sunday the 18th we got up and took a two hour flight to Xi’an. I got us a hotel in the middle of the old, walled in city. I had been to Xi’an with my parents and brothers back in the early 90s. I  just remembered seeing the Terracotta warriors and the large wall surrounding the city. That was enough for me to want to go back. After checking in we walked near the hotel – seeing a number of the big sights of the city: a couple large pagodas and the Muslim neighborhood. We stopped at a famous dumpling shop for a very late lunch and strolled the streets.

The travel guides warned of long lines to get into the restaurant but the place was almost completely empty – as were all the sites and streets. With Covid in full swing in China, everyone was at home – sick with Covid or hiding to avoid getting it. After lunch we continued to wander. Morton found a crazy “claw arcade” – a game shop that only has claw machines.

Morton has amazing skills at this game in the U.S. At this shop the games felt rigged – much harder than in the US but he did win Celia some stuffed creature she wanted.

That evening we found this amazing complex of restaurants and activities – but not a single person there. It’s a strange time – the the economy tanking after being closed for so many years and everyone sick with Covid. Daniel and Morton jumped on an indoor basketball court to play – but were told it was closed. Seemed very odd. We found an empty roller-disco/pool hall. The guy there turned on the disco lights and Chinese disco music for us. I couldn’t get the kids to roller skate with me but the boys and I played a game of pool. I want to make sure it’s in the record that I crushed them – I’d like to attribute it to all that practicing with Anita and Chris last year – but most likely it was just a lucky night.

The next morning we ate early in the hotel and then went to see the Terracotta warriors. Our tour guide was great. Sadly she said there hadn’t had any tours in three years.

When I went to see the warriors in the 90s there was just one pit that was being excavated. Now there are three – though none of them are close to completion. It was as amazing as I remembered – and great to see it again as my memory was mostly foggy. The massiveness – even with only a small portion excavated – is still truly amazing. Each soldier is unique – representing supposedly an actual person. And the way they are piecing it together is also unbelieveable. Apparently when they unearth the pieces they are very brightly colored but extremely quickly the colors disappear -this is one of the reasons the excavation is going so slowly – they are trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening – but not much luck so far. After the first excavation of warriors they started documenting the pieces quickly so at least in photographs the colors can be preserved. It seems so crazy to imagine The Terracotta Warriors so brightly colored. 

Afterwards the guide wanted to take us to a restaurant to have the local noodles. The character for these noodles required around 54 strokes to write – it’s crazy! I’ve never seen anything like it. Unfortunately when we got to the restaurant, it was closed – she assumed due to Covid. So many places are closed now.

I had read of an area which was supposed to have lots of good snacks and street food so the tour guide decided to take us there. When we got there, there were guards saying the area was closed. She couldn’t believe they could just close off the street with all the shops and food stalls – but it was all closed. Out of desperation we went back to the Muslim area we were at the previous evening. She took us to a more local section of the street and asked people where we could get these famous noodles. We walked for a while and after a bit she was informed the restaurant had shut down. She then found us another noodle house where we ate some kind of hot noodle soup. Not really sure what it was but it was hot and we were so cold so even if they weren’t the famous regional noodles – they were perfect!

After that we went to check out the old city wall. I had heard you can bike on top of it and circle the old city. I was a little surprised when we got there that you have to pay to go on to the wall – not so expensive – but seems a terrible shame that the locals can’t just take advantage of this great place to experience their city. Anyway we went up and rented bikes. It took 1.5-2 hours to bike around. The bikes were pretty terrible – we couldn’t change the seat heights – but we had a really fun time biking around and enjoying the views of the city.

That evening Dan had a couple phone interviews that would make dinner timing difficult and Morton was tired so Celia and I headed out on our own. We caught a taxi to a pretty distant part of the city. We got there and it was beautiful! There were these colorful lanterns and lights on the trees. We wandered around taking it all in. Our tour guide from earlier in the day recommended a restaurant in the area which ended up being very strange. When we got there we thought maybe it was a cat store. There were all these cat sculptures and pictures in the window. Then a young man in a beautiful silk robe with a cat pin and a cat mask peaked out and asked us if we wanted to eat. Inside there were more cat paraphernalia. The food ended up being not great, but it was interesting. 

Afterwards Celia and I went back out and wandered around some more and Celia bought a large ice cream sunday wrapped in a freshly made waffle.

The next morning we headed out to the train station. After a bit of a struggle -first we couldn’t figure out how to use the ticket purchasing machines and then, finding the only open ticket counter, not understanding the agents questions. As a long line was forming behind us, we were lucky that the young man behind us in line spoke a decent amount of English and got us through buying tickets. We got tickets on the high speed train to Chengdu. We were very surprised when we got on and found the train quite full as it was mid day on a Tuesday when everywhere else in China is completely desolate. Very strange. It took us just over three hours to get to Chengdu.

As there are no tourists, the Ritz Carleton was having a crazy deal on their rooms – so we booked ourselves there. We couldn’t believe how beautiful it was when we got here! Because so many people are out with Covid, many parts of the hotel were closed. The gorgous pool- was the most disappointing for us.

After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we jumped on the subway and went to a super cute neighborhood, wandered around and bought some small dishes wandering from stall to stall, tasting this and that, for dinner.

Late that night I woke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When I opened the door to the bathroom the toilet lid automatically opened with a light going on inside the bowl. In the middle of the night it gave me quite a fright! 

The next morning we woke to an impressive Ritz Carleton breakfast spread. Then we drove out to one of the Giant Panda reserves. Chengdu is famous for its pandas. We had a lovely morning wandering around checking out the super cute pandas. They are either feasting on bamboo, dropping bamboo residue all over their bellies, or they are sleeping. Seem like a nice life. We all want one as a pet.

After the Panda preserve, we found a vegan restaurant somewhere in downtown Chengdu. It was very strange. It was in a mall that was almost completely vacant. There was nothing else on the entire floor that wasn’t empty. The escalators were wrapped in plastic. We assumed the restaurant must no longer exist but saw one light on down the hall. When we got to the lit area we walked into this lovely restaurant. Again, it was very strange,  but we had a nice lunch.

That evening I had a taxi take us to another neighborhood I had read about. He dropped us at a bridge that was so beautiful.

On the bridge is a Micheline star restaurant – which looked lovely but we weren’t dressed for it – but it was also almost completely empty – so sad to see. We wandered along the river’s edge. Most of the places were kareoke bars which were empty. I was feeling a bit discouraged about finding a place we wanted to eat when Celia and I peaked into a hole in the wall. The woman working in this tiny restaurant talked us into staying with our minimal ability to communicate .  The restaurant was quite small – just a few tables. One family at a table tried to help us negotiate food. We eventually sat at a small square wood slat table on wooden benches. The food was hot pot – with a hole in the middle of the table with a gas burner in it. This is the specialty of Sichuan – the region we were in. The woman running the place put a large pot into the hole and then a small circular pot in the middle of it. She put ingredients in them both, then added water, to make broth. One was non spicy and the other was supposed to be just a tiny bit of spice. Then we ordered vegetables (and later meat for morton) to put into the boiling broths. I couldn’t bear anything that came out of the spicy broth -but it was a super fun activity and  a man from one of the two other tables and his young son – joined us for a while – which made it all the more fun. The son was a 3rd grader and although shy, his english was definitely better than his father’s or better than any of our Mandarin. It was a great evening.