After breakfast, with all the necessities packed into my backpack I headed off to the Bus Terminal at the Xi'an Train Station, found the bus heading to Huashan and sat in the bus and wait...and wait, and wait. There was only about 6 passengers and the bus would not leave unless there were at least 18 to 20 persons! As the wait dragged on to noon, with no apparent increase in the number of passengers, I finally gave up the idea of going altogether. Checked with the bus driver on the last bus "leaving" for Huashan for the day (it was 5 to 6 pm) and decided to go somewhere else instead of this seemingly futile wait. Plan was to come back at about 5 to 6 pm and see if the bus actually will leave for Huashan with the requisite number of persons, if not would abandon the whole idea of going altogether. (It's really weird how things, as always work themselves out in the end!)
Checked out the 2RMB map I bought from a street vendor near the bus stop, looked for the stone slab musuem (西安碑林博物馆) the tour guide was mentioning the day before and headed straight there by public bus. Not too complicated and was quite surprised how close it was to the South Gate and it was in yet another fascinating street full of writing and painting materials and other stuffs called 书院门.
The musuem was full of rows after rows of stone carvings and it would take a lot of time if you want to read them in detail. There were volumes of literary works by Confucius and Mencius and many many others. It would be a different experience to read them on stone slabs instead of on paper. The characters and words would be much more pronounced and "jumping at you". I did not have that much time, hence could only browse through most of them and snapping some which I felt was interesting for later reading. They even sell tracing of the more famous stone carvings, some of which were carvings with paintings/drawings.
There was also a house with exhibits of Buddhist stone sculptures and statues. Definitely worth a visit, better if could spend an entire day here.
Next stop was to head to the South Gate to do the cycling round the whole city walls. I walked through the 书院门 street, browsing through some jade stuffs - specifically for Maitreya Buddha jade pieces. Always wanted to have one, not just any one, but one that would be a joy to look at and touch, especially the tummy! Went through a few stalls and settle on a rather large one, with a belly button!! The South Gate was just at the entrance to 书院门 at 南大街.
Bumped into a street stall selling spicy noodles so jumped in and had a bowl! It was Sichuan-spicy and very delicious, there was no meat, just vegetables but the soup was.......ooh la la! Superb!
It was quite a challenge getting to the South Gate entrance of the city walls, due to the crazy roundabout-type of traffic flow. There was a race event held on the wall at that time, I was thinking they must be mad! - in this cold weather? Unfortunately when I went up to the wall it was nearly 4pm and the bicycle rental closes shop at 5pm! Needing at least 1hour and 45mins to make a complete round around the walls, cycling was out of the question, so instead settled walking a stretch of the wall as I needed to get back to the train station to check out the bus to Huashan around 5 to 6pm. I think I made a right angle turn on the wall, passing a number of smaller gates before dismounting the wall at 长乐门 gate. The weather was cold so a little brisk walking helped warmed up the body.
Took a cab to the train station but due to peak hour traffic, was dropped off by about a kilometre off the train station and had to go there on foot instead. Luckily I did not sit and wait, the bus did not move at all! Upto then, the number of persons still fell short of the 18 to 20 persons required for the bus trip to be profitable, only about 10 or 11 persons I think! The driver confirmed that the bus would still make the trip even if the number of persons was not enough as it was the last bus out for the day! So....finally I could make the trip to Huashan! Had no idea what I would do there, whether to climb in the night up to catch the sunrise or wait until the next morning.....absolutely NO IDEA! Just make the most of the dire situation I suppose?
The bus did not make the whole journey actually! We had to switch to another bus going in the same direction to somewhere further a short while along the road - there were 5 of us going to Huashan and another 4 or 5 going to other places along the same route. Chatted up with those 4 persons going to Huashan and everyone agreed that we would do it together as a group! See how things work out? The 5 of us were "dumped" on the main road and had to walk our way to the entrance of Huashan! No complaints, at least we were getting there. Just as well, we made our way to a general store and got the provisions we need as everyone agreed to find our way up in the night instead of waiting until early morning. As such we needed general use work gloves (the white kind), torch lights, masks (for the cold), some food etc. The guy from Shenzhen bought a lock with his name instantly carve on the spot which was to be locked at chains in some section near the top of the mountain, for eternal peace and safety I think! And so the gang headed out on our little adventure! There was another young lady, also from Shenzhen and a friend of the man plus 2 university students from Hong Kong.
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