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Xi'an Attractions
Tang Paradise is located near the Big Wild Goose Pagoda ,
in the Qujiang Resort, southeast of the Xian City, Shaanxi Province. It is a
newly opened tourist attraction in April, 2005. Tang Paradise cov
ers
a total area of 1000 mu (about 165 acres) and of which 300 mu (about 49
acres) is water. This tourist attraction not only claims to be the biggest
cultural theme park in the northwest region of China but also the first
royal-garden-like park to give a full display of the Tang Dynasty's
(618-907) culture.Altogether, twelve scenic regions are distributed
throughout Tang Paradise to provide visitors with the enjoyment of twelve
cultural themes and a perfect exhibition of the grandness, prosperity and
brilliance of the culture of the Tang Dynasty.
What makes Tang Paradise incredible is that it is no longer the garden mode of only water and mountains in the Chinese traditional sense. The outstanding designers of the magnificent Tang Paradise have integrated almost everything representative of the Tang Dynasty, such as the poetry, the songs and dance, the marketplaces, the food, the women's lifestyles, and science into every site using cultural themes, thus endowing every place with its own story and its own place in the tapestry of Tang Dynasty culture.
Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses
The well-known Terra-cotta Museum is located east of Emperor Qin's Mausoleum, which covers a total area of 20 hectares. The museum is decorated with verdant trees，blooming flowers and carpets of green grass. The scenery in the museum looks quite elegant and delightful. Three main buildings of the museum, which were named Pit 1,Pit 2, Pit 3, were constructed on their original sites in different periods of time.
Emperor Qin's Terra-cotta Museum is not only a treasure house where the tourists can learn history, culture and human civilization, but also a main scenic spot of Xi'an city. It can receive about 1.5 million tourists annually. Approximately 40 million visitors from home and abroad have visited the Museum within the last 20 years. Today "the eighth Wonder of the world" has almost become synonym of the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses In 1987, the Emperor Qin's Mausoleum was put on the list of the UNESCO as a world-class cultural heritage site. Now the Museum is well-known widely as a huge modern on-site museum and it is going to be one of the best in the world.
As one of the five best-known mountains in China, Mount Huashan is located to the south of Huayin city, 120 kilometers east of Xian, in Shaanxi province, with an elevation of 2200 meters above sea level. In ancient times, Mt. Huashan was called Mt. Taihuashan. Seen from afar, the five peaks looks like five petals of a flower. Hence its name, Mt. Huashan (= five flowers). Today, it is listed as one of the renowned national scenic spots.
More travelling information is linked as follows:
Small Wild Goose Pagoda
Qian Mausoleum (Qian Ling)
Shaanxi Provincial History Museum
Mausoleum of Western Han Emperor Liu Qi (Hanyangling)
Hukou Waterfalls (Kettle Spout Falls)
Dining of Xi'an
Xian is legendary as "the capital of table delicacies."
The ancient city is famous for the delicious Shaanxi snack, the delicate
Guangdong cuisine, various kinds of fashionable foreign delicacies, and the
popular Sichuan cuisine, such as hot pot.
Local Food
Visitors to Xian must do two things: one is to see the clay figures of terra
cotta warriors and horses. The other is to taste
Yang Rou Pao Mo (a soup dish that involves breaking wheat flour flat
bread into a bowl and adding a delicious mutton stock). Before dinner, you
will be served one or two pieces of wheat flour flat bread which you into
tiny chunks, the smaller the better. The waiter or the waitress will then
hand your bowl to the cook who mixes the bread and mutton soup with an
appropriate relish. When the steaming hot meal is brought in, the waiter
will also offer you sweet crisp pickled garlic, coriander, and hot pepper
sauce. The most famous, the Tong Sheng Xiang (Prosperity and Fortune) Beef
and Lamb Paomo Restaurant done in Tang Dynasty style, is a time-honored
establishment in the Xian Bell and Drum Tower Square.
Next to Tong Sheng Xiang is a great restaurant, De Fa Chang Dumpling
Restaurant, with its own version of the
Dumpling Banquet. Ingredients for the dumpling fillings include
various meats, vegetables, and seasonings. Cooking methods include steaming,
boiling, pan-frying, deep frying, and roasting. Many flavors, including
salty, sweet, hot, and sour are offered. Other house specialties include
Peking dumplings, steamed sweet bean paste buns, steamed shrimp paste buns,
and various uniquely spiced dishes. While guests sample various delicacies,
traditionally waiters will explain the cuisine culture of each dumpling.
One of Xian's most famous specialties is the Guan Tang Baozi (steamed buns
served with sauces inside) served at Jia Brothers' Restaurant in Muslim
Snack Street. You'll know you're there when you see the monstrous blue arch
over the entrance and a wall festooned with photographs of Xian notables --
TV hosts, writers, and musicians. The specialty dish is Guan Tang Bao Zi,
with a choice of beef, lamb or "three flavors" -- lamb, mushroom, and
prawns. The buns have piping-hot soup inside, so caution is advised. This
dish is best washed down with Ba Bao Xi Fan, a bowl of sweet rice porridge
filled with peanuts, sultanas, hawthorn, and medlar berries.
Fanji is the famous vendor of Shaanxi's most widely consumed snack, Rou Jia
Mo, finely chopped pork stuffed in toasted wheat flour flat bread. A piece
of good-quality (youzhi) bread and a bowl of mung bean flour soup will cost
you no more than RMB10. The state-run atmosphere is quaint and friendly, and
the numerous awards that decorate the walls are well deserved. The
restaurant is in a lane opposite the Drum Tower, south of West Main Street.
A fascinating lure for food buffs is Local Snacks Street (Hui Min Jie) near
Drum Tower in Muslim Square. On the two sides of the 500-meter street, there
are many restaurants of different cuisines along with unique snack shops.
While enjoying true Muslim cuisine, tourists can learn customs of the Hui
people.
Besides guan tang baozi in Jia Brothers' Restaurant, there is barbeque in
the Pingwa Kaorou Shop, sour cabbage and beef fried rice in Honghong Suancai
Chaomi Restraunt, and beef noodles in Yifenli Restaurant. Other offerings,
including fried persimmon cake (shi zi bing), fried dumpling (guo tie),
stir-fried bean jelly (chao liang fen), chopped mutton fried in a wok with
fine-ground wheat (fen zheng rou), and beef and vegetable pie (xian bing)
are available on both sides of the street.
If you would like to taste all the local food at one time in a budget meal,
Xian Restaurant (Xian Fan Zhuang) offers more than 100 varieties in its
first-floor self-service restaurant. It charges only RMB18 per person, and
is very popular with visitors.
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As the center of northwest China, Xian provides a wide range of table
delicacies in addition to local and traditional cuisine.
Please visit Xi'an Travel Guide to get more information about Xi'an.
