Xi'an

Friday June 25
Today after an early flight (4 a.m. wake-up call) we arrived in Xi’ an (she an). Xi’an is home to the famous terra cotta warriors, which we will get to see tomorrow. But we started here with a visit to a school. I enjoyed very much observing a 5th grade math class in which every student was actively engaged and no one misbehaved for even a moment. Nonetheless, they were active, involved and excited about learning to calculate the volume of a cube.
Then we went for a short walk on the city wall, which is enormous. The wall was built during the Ming dynasty to protect the city from northern invaders. It’s much larger than any of the city walls I saw while in Europe. On Sunday Ellen and I are planning to rent bikes to ride along the top of it. It’s huge!
Finally we attended a dinner theater show, which featured music and dancing inspired by the Tang dynasty. Xi’an was the here have I heard that one before?
Gift idea of the day? Lots of raw meat lying out in the fresh air on the counter in the market. Meatloaf, anyone?