Spending Our First Day in Xian, China

This was Chinese New Year and we were in China! We arrived late to the ancient city of Xian last night and we heard firecrackers going off all night from our hotel room! Waking up early, we kept very quiet as Y. was still sleeping. We went out for a stroll by ourselves in the neighborhood of our hotel. Since we were staying outside of the old city, we didn’t see much going on as this was the Chinese New Year day. Most of the shops in the neighborhood were closed, except for a few convenience stores in the area.

There are many small mom and pop shops and street vendors in China. These small business owners and employees usually work very hard throughout the year hardly taking any time off at all. The only real holiday for them is the annual vacation they take during Chinese New Year when practically everyone who is working away from their home town would take time off to go back home and be re reunited with their loved ones. Therefore, we were glad to see many of these small shop owners taking their well deserved annual holidays. The street were very quiet without too many people or much going on at all. We passed by one small shop run by a Uyghur gentleman selling special breads and meat pastries. We bought some to try, very delicious! Lucky for us, we ran into a noodle restaurant that was open during the New Year. We found a place for food and ordered some noodles for our breakfast!

Y. woke up and we went into the old town. We were awed by the massive size of the old city walls totally encircling the city. It was magnaficient! With its wide city streets, thick and high city walls, beautiful Xian was a capital city in ancient China. It exuded its prominent importance and significance in history. We definitely could feel the glorious past of Xian! Though it was quiet outside the ancient city when we went out during the day, it was quite busy once when we went inside the city.

There were a lot of tourists and quite a few of them, especially young women dressed in Hanfu-ancient traditional Chinese clothes touring around and taking pictures at the scenic spots of the city. Celebrating the first day of the year of Snake, we enjoyed a nice dinner in a restaurant with our loved ones! May God bless us and fill our lives with peace, joy and love! RT, Xian, China 01292025