Day 9-11: Living on the edge

I feel like our trip is getting better and better from day to day. Our next station was Xi'an, the place that motivated me personally to do that trip from the beginning because of Huashan. It was only a few months ago that I was doing some research on China when I found pictures of people posing on planks that are not broader than 30cm. It is hard to believe that we have done it now as well.

We spent our first day in Xi'an at the Terracotta army. I think most people know those figures. There are about 8,000 individual figures that were placed in the tomb of the first Chinese emperor in order to protect him. Each of them represent one real soldier in his army. Unfortunately, the museum did not meet our expectations. Maybe our expectations were too high but there were only three halls where little or no information about anything was provided. If you do not have a guide you will only see the statues and understand nothing. There is a museum about the museum itself and how it was founded but not e.g. why the statues were made. The whole area is not too big and it took us only about one hour to finish. Nevertheless, a must do in China if you are in Xi'an.

After visiting the Terra Cotta army, we went back to downtown Xi'an and visited the city wall. Xi'an is a pretty interesting city because it was also called Chang'an and served as the capital of ancient China for about 1,000 years. It was in a time when the silk road flourished and when China was the most powerful country in the world. It is also the only remaining walled city in China.

We were staying at a hostel where you could see the northern gates of the city wall. So far every single hostel in China surprised us by their location and beauty. The best thing about the hostels are that they are incredibly cheap. On average we spent 5€ per person per night.
On the next day, we went to the Muslim quarter. As you have to know, China is a multinational country. It consists of 54 ethnicities of which over 90% are Han Chinese (like me).

In the evening, we did something typical for Chinese: KARAOKE aka KTV with our new friend Minsong from South Korea.

On our last day in Xi'an, we went to Huashan (another mountain). This mountain was pretty tough because some of its stairs were extremely steep. Some of them almost had 90° but were closed recently due to safety reasons. It was a tough climb but totally worth it because at the end this amazing place awaited us:

I do not think that I will ever forget this moment again. I should mention that I am afraid of height but somehow got used to it when I was standing in the line.

 Some people were too afraid but wanted a picture...

Our next stop is Lhasa!