After the haircut it was off to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. By the way, it’s amazing what a bit of a snoop around the internet can reveal. Evidently the Wild Goose thing relates to a story that describes the origins of the Ci’en temple complex. At the time (early Tang) there were some sects of Buddhist monks who ate meat and others who didn’t. A bunch of the carnivorous ones were feeling a bit peckish and wondered whether or not the divine powers were going to provide them with a snack. At the time a flock of wild geese just happened by. Just at the point when the monks were praying for some divine intervention in the way of a bite to eat, the lead goose suddenly fell from the sky with its wings broken. The monks saw this as a sign that it was time to get a bit more seriously pious and give up eating their flesh eating ways. The pagoda was built and has carried the name “Wild Goose Pagoda” ever since. When the small one was built later on, it was given the name “Small Wild Goose Pagoda” to link but also distinguish it from the other one.

A short bus trip and I was at the temple complex where the pagoda stands. It has an interesting history. It was split down the middle but not destroyed by an earthquake several hundred years ago, creating a crack from top to bottom. A subsequent earthquake pushed the cracked bits back together, leaving a scar. Another major earthquake caused the top three levels to collapse and they have never been replaced. The pagoda itself sits on a semi-spherical dome, which spreads the shock when earthquakes hit, Xi’an being in an eartquake prone region. Obviously it hasn’t worked perfectly but it is this construction technique that is credited with saving it from destruction in the many earthquakes it has endured.

Unfortunately the pagoda itself was closed - a shame as you can normally climb right up and it gets really narrow at the top. The temple area had quite a bit of activity going on though, with performers playing music and wandering about. There’s also the new Xi’an Museum, which had a hologram theatre (no photos allowed) and various exhibits of Xi’an’s history, with a lot on the Tang era and on the design of the city itself. That was worth the entry charge itself. The building itself is also quite cool, with a big circular atrium and the displays in wings leadin off and curving around it. The same pattern is repeated for the basement display area, where the centre is filled with scale models of the old city.

From there it’s a short walk back to the South Gate of the city wall, the Ming rebuilt circuit that still completely encloses the old city. The Ming were very energetic builders in their early period (from about 1368 on I think). That’s great if you want to see stuff built by the Ming and to be fair to them, it’s possibly the only reason some stuff still exists at all, but it did mean that a lot of older stuff was covered over or replaced. The wall is a case in point. The Ming wall replaced the Tang wall that had stood for about 800 years already. Another point I suppose is that if they hadn’t rebuilt the wall, Xi’an might not exist . . .

Having said that, the wall itself is a pretty awesome piece of engineering, and really gives a unique character to the city. I climbed onto it at about 5 in the evening and was there as the sun went down (I caught my first hazy glimpse of the Xi’an sun this afternoon – it’s been heavily overcast since I arrived) and the New Year light show went on. The wall and all its towers are all lit up and there are all kinds of wire and fabric displays on the wall too, lit from inside. There’s quite a festive atmosphere with people bringing their kids to play sideshow games and just walk along it, looking at all the displays. It’s quite likely that the wall has always been used like this in peacetime. I wanted to walk right around but had been walking all day already and hadn’t really eaten since being sick the night before so I’ll try and make that a mission for another day. Tomorrow I’m off on another all day trip out of town, to visit some other notable places. There’s still so much to do and only 12 days left to do it all, including the day I leave.