Where were we?
Oh, yeah. So, we (Ianuar, Shelly, and myself), rounded the far western corner of the City Wall of Xi'an, passed the North Gate, and ran right into...lanterns?
The second half of our journey around the City Wall of Xi'an was filled with giant lanterns. I'm not sure what they were for exactly: Either they light them up every night, or they had something to do with the National Day festival the day before. In any case, the northern expanse of the wall was acting as a staging area for the lanterns.
Here's an overview of some (by no means all) of the types of lanterns we saw:
Tigers. The first section of lanterns we encountered on the Xi'an City Wall.
It's the Year of the Tiger, so the first round of lanterns were all cartoon tigers in-keeping with this year's theme.
A Row of Tigers. Is a group of tigers a pack? A pride? What is a group of Tiger Lanterns? A brightness?
Although there were a great deal of tiger's, they were by no means all the wall had to offer:
Flowering Trees. Large tree lanterns with pink flowers.
Creepy People. Most of the lanterns were in less than new condition, this was especially true of the humans represented.
Faberge Eggs on Lotus Blossoms? I'm not sure, but this missing egg is indicative of the state of repair of most of the lanterns we saw.
The Insect Kingdom. This section reminded me of A Bug's Life.
Cloisonné Elephant. One of several cloisonné animals.
Star Road. Shooting stars over the Xi'an City Wall.
The Sea Lion. This guy was all on his own, not sure about his "theme."
Egypt. Tucked away all by itself in one of the wall's alcoves.
In Need of Repairs. Most of the lanterns could use some kind of work.
Totem Poles. North America was not over looked in the lantern processional.
Moon Goddess? Could be...
We finished our ride around the wall and head off. We had discussed visiting the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, but took a detour down a street market:
Xi'an City Center Street Market. Off the road, and along the city wall to the south.
We shopped around a bit, enjoyed the scenery. One man was making candy animals out of something like caramel:
Caramel Animals. Made by a man on the street in Xi'an.
We turned down a scenic street...
Beautiful Street. One turn off of the market.
...unfortunately, the only thing to look at was the scenery.
We left the market and went toward the Towers. Ianuar and Shelly didn't want to go inside today, which was fine since I was pretty tired.
The Bell Tower. The outside, anyway.
We walked around a little more, took in some so of the culture.
Window Dressing. A lot of the shops downtown hired women to wear strange outfits out front or in elaborate window scenes.
Exhausted, we made our way home...
Yeah? Right in the middle of the city, no less.
Hayden
Very cool stuff! I find it funny that North America is known for totem poles. So much for our ethnocentric world view :)
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