Day 4: The Big Goose Pagoda

The visit to the Terra Cotta Museum concluded with a running of the gauntlet of souvenir vendors. While the vendors everywhere were rather aggressive and in-your-face, the vendors at the Terra Cotta Museum deserve a special mention. Outside the first vendor, we were able to bargain for souvenir terra cotta soldiers for 1 yuan (about 13 cents). When we went inside to pick up our 1 yuan soldiers, the salesgirls were insistent that we did not want those soldiers, we wanted the 80 yuan soldiers. The 1 yuan soldiers were cheaply made, while the 80 yuan soldiers were of much better quality, which they demonstrated by banging them loudly on a metal plate. They also would not leave us alone to look at the soldiers and decide for ourselves which ones we wanted. A couple of us ended up walking away because they were so annoying. Carrying on, we had old women shoving soldiers in our hands, trying to get us to buy from them. I finally ended up buying 2 sets of soldiers from a woman who agreed to my 10-yuan-for-each price. Despite the pushy sales people, I think everyone ended up with at least one set of soldiers.

After the Terra Cotta Museum, we headed back to Xi'an to visit the Big Goose Pagoda. The pagoda, a Buddhist temple, was built around 648 AD to honor Xuan Zang, one of the first Buddhist monks in China. He traveled to India and obtained Buddhist scriptures in the original Sanskrit and returned to Xi'an to translate them into Chinese. The Big Goose Pagoda is on the grounds of the larger Da Ci'en Temple, which is still used today. After wandering around the grounds, several of us climbed the 7-story pagoda. On each floor windows look out in each of the four cardinal directions, offering spectacular views of that part of the city.

Entrance to the Temple Grounds

View from the top of the Pagoda