An early morning to catch a flight to Xian, which is located on the banks of the Yellow River, and has a history dating back to 1,000 BC, it was also the starting point for the famous trade route, the "Silk Road", a caravan passageway which carried not only silks, ceramics and spices but also lend to an exchange of cultures, technologies and ideas. Buddism, brought from India during the Tang Dynasty (612 to 907AD) was perhaps one of the most influential of the religions to travel along this famed road into Xian.

Erin our guide, actually was born in the country of Xian, so she was especially proud to show off her place of home, our days were packed with sights in Xian.

On our arrival we had an early lunch, then were off to see the Small Goose Pagoda. Pagoda's originate from India.   This pagoda was constructed to store scriptures brought back from India along the silk road, the brick tower was completed in AD 709, it was meant to protect the scriptures from fire, which often destroyed wooden temple buildings. The pagoda's top came off in an earthquake, and in 1487 sent a large fracture along its length, but then a tremor in the next century reversed the damage.   The pagoda was attached to a temple, and in the garden, when we walked through we found an area full of head stone type features only to find they were used for tying up horses.   

In the old temple residential areas, we were introduced to a craft workshop area. We were taught about how the chinese characters came to being - calligraphy, a very interesting overview, how the basics started, the charters are actually words, not letters, each symbol depicts a picture and that is what the sentence is about, the calligrapher showed us how some of the words were formed.

We then watched chinese painting, using brush and inks/watercolours, on paper. Chinese paintings are mostly either landscape, or animal, flower, some depict the Dynastys events and others religious.   We all bought lovely hand painted prints, our names were written in Chinese and dated, the painter also gave us the meanings of our names.

Other handcrafts we were briefed on were the snuff bottles - painted inside, silk rug making, and leather made hand puppets.

We were also introduced to the music of the Chinese Romeo and Juliet, called the Butterfly Lovers or in Chinese - Liang Zhu, played by the Zither, a string instrument.

Our next stop was to the Shaanxi History Museum, home to thousands of priceless cultural reclics from past dynasties. I've attached some photos of the exhibits, including the Tang Sancai Horse (three colour) and the Chinese Astrology Statues.   We also saw for the first time some Terracotta Warriors, however I wanted to leave that info and photos for tomorrow's blog.

After checkin at the hotel and a afternoon of rest, we were taken to a Restaurant Show for a feast of Shui Jiao Dumpling Dinner, a speciality of the region and the music and dance show from the Tang Dynasty era.    The Dumplings were all shaped into animals and flowers, and the show was spectacular because of the amount of dancers on the stage and amazing costumes.