3/14 – Another Xi’an morning – if only we could see the sun… Here’s the view out our hotel window. Xi’an is even more polluted than Beijing – yuck!

As we won’t be going north to Beijing to see the Great Wall, we decided to head south today to see the City Wall of Xi’an.  It’s a mild Saturday, and folks are out enjoying the spring weather.  We stopped at a concrete park to watch kids of all ages flying kites.

A taxi ride in bumper-to-bumper traffic got us to the southern entrance, where we paid 60 yuan ($10) apiece to climb to the top of the wall.  Jim remembered his trip here 30 years ago, and the plaques that described how the wall acted as the primary defense for the city. Soldiers rained fire and arrows on any would-be intruders.

When we got to the top, we found a wonderland of giant flowers, animals and cartoon characters.  The figures are lit up in the evenings.  

Children were blowing bubbles and having their pictures taken.

Folks rented bicycles or strolled down the length of the wall.  At the end were food stalls, where everything from ice cream to fried squid could be purchased.
 

We noticed that attire with (almost) English words emblazoned on them are very popular among the young and stylish.  We saw shirts paying homage to San Rancisco and Flawrida, and one elderly gentleman proudly sporting a ball cap emblazoned DOPE.  I recalled that a few years back it was stylish for young Americans to get Chinese symbols tattooed on their skin.  I always wondered what the tattoos actually said…

 We walked until we were tired, then turned around for the journey home. A nice excursion for our last day in Xi’an.