Part One - Xi'anXi’an (used to be called Chang An) has been the capital of 13 dynasties, dated back to 1000 BC. It’s known for Terra Cotta , and many other ancient architecture wonders. This is the place you want to be, if let’s say you were 1400 years younger, in Tang dynasty. It was the most popular city in the world at the time, and true international city where you can find Persian merchants, Japanese monks etc.
Big Wild Goose PagodaWell over 1000 years old and has mostly survived great earthquakes. The pagoda was built to store sutras and figurines of Buddha that were brought to China by the Buddhist translator and traveler Xuanzang. The emperor built him the Pagoda for him to translate the Indian Buddhist texts to Chinese. The fantasy novel “Journey to the West” (where it features the character of Monkey King) was very loosely based on this historic event.
The spectacular music fountain next to the Pagoda (some say it’s the world’s largest, who knows).
Chang An around 700 – 800 A.D. It was the first city in the world to introduce urban planning, with grid pattern, straight roads running north- south and east west. Compared with the Google satellite map of Xi’an today, you can see that the layout of the city has not been changed that much.
Use Big Wild Goose Pagoda (or Dayan Pagoda) as reference, this is the area where I used to live and go to school.
Dell Tower and Drum TowerThe Bell Tower located at the city centre. For a long time, this was a hinder to the downtown development as no building taller than the Bell tower was allowed within certain proximity. I think they have loosened the rules (or the area) in the recent years. The drum Towner is about 1000 ft from Bell Tower, where you can find the World’s largest drum. In old days, the bell rings by dawn and drum by dust to mark the passage of time (They still do, but more like a show for tourist today).