This morning we left the apartment around 9:00 – 9:30 AM in an attempt to get to the Xi’an City wall to see a changing guard ceremony. We got there in plenty of time but didn’t see the ceremony or where it was so we just continued by climbing a huge staircase to the top of the wall.

We rented bikes and took and exhilarating 14 km ride around the entire wall. It was amazing looking at the city as we rode. We stopped to look over the wall a number of times. My favourite time was to see what I think was a Buddhist temple because it had prayer flags everywhere. You could smell the incense and see the prayer wheels flashing around and around.

The cobblestones were fairly smooth all the way around with only some sections jarring to the jaw not to mention other anatomical parts. There was also lovely Chinese music playing from speakers as we rode along. At each gate you had to go around a path to the right or left and there were big downhill and than uphill slopes. It was so much fun. I had a perm grin on almost the entire time. My heart felt glad.

When we were done I bought a Perrier for way too much money and sat to rest for a little while and hubby went to check out a bicycle exhibit just next to us. He said some of the older ones didn’t even have pedals. Next we were off to find the Small Goose Pagoda. We got back onto the Subway and went one more stop. We thought we knew where we were going but apparently not. We stopped at a real hole in the wall place to eat and had an amazing fired rice/rice pilaf dish. Yummmm!! We wandered back and forth some more down a very dodgy looking back alley and a sweet young couple walked us back to the right road and pointed us in the right direction.

We finally found it. Unfortunately going inside the Pagoda was off limits due to repairs apparently. I was so disappointed as it is supposed to be extremely cool but when you’re built in the fifth century I guess occasionally you need some work done. Oh well – we walked around the grounds, took pictures of the pagoda and watched people ring a huge bell. It was very peaceful.

We finally walked slowly back to the Subway and made our way to the apartment. Back to our Terra Cotta Warrior friends. We laid around and since we had had a late lunch weren’t really that hungry. Hubby snacked on goodies and I had the last instant soup and a piece of leftover KFC. Hubby did some work and reading the news on the computer and I was asleep before he came to bed.