The second city of our graduation trip is Xian. We are taking a plane from Xiamen to Xian. It is quite interesting for me because it is actually my first time to take a domestic flight. As for my friends, it is probably like the second or the third time of taking planes. So we all are quite excited about the experience.

 

Again, we are living in an airbnb in Xian. The location of our apartment is quite convenient for us because it is right at downtown with shopping malls all around. And the metro is just five minutes of walk.

The next morning we go the Fireflies Light Art Gallery. It has a lot of different settings of lights, and it is a great place for pictures.

          

                         

It is a really fun place, and we take tons of pictures inside. Then we have a steak buffet for lunch, and we go to a trampoline place called Double One. There are so many kinds of trampolines inside.

Then in the night, we go to Muslim Snack Street for dinner, but we do not expect the street to be so crowded that we can barely move.

We try a lot of local food, such as cruded pancake in mutton soup, Biangbiang noodles, sheep’s haslet soup, and rougamo.

These food taste pretty special, very different from the food in the east of China. I do not really like eating haslets, so I guess it is hard for me to live in this city.

After dinner, we walk to the Drum Tower first. It was built in 1380, and it was used to give the time to the entire city by beating the drum.

Then we walk to the Bell Tower. It was also built to remind the people of time and emergency by ringing the huge bell inside.

It is very close to the Drum Tower. It is quite shocking to see both buildings and how carefully they were built with so many details.

Then on the last day, we go to Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. It contains a collection of terracotta sculptures of the armies of the first emperor of China: Qin Shi Huang of Qin Dynasty. It is such a huge construction that it is so hard to imagine it was built in around B.C. 200.

However, it is very interesting that no sculpture has a weapon on their hands. There are many theories behind this, and one of them is that others stole the weapons and used them to rebel at the end of Qin Dynasty.

Xian is a very interesting city with lots of history. It is an ancient capital of many dynasties. There are a lot more to see and explore, but we only have three days. I would never forget this graduation trip with my best friends, and I am so grateful that we met and have taken care of each other since first grade.