We arrived in Xian in the morning, then walked a long way from the long distance bus station to the hostel with our heavy backpacks. After cleaning up, we entered the city walls and made out way past lanes on the outskirts with old buildings marked for demolition, to new shopping centers by the belltower until we reached a lane that led into the Muslim Quarter. Apparently there have been Muslims there since the 6th century when Arab traders travelled the silk road, bringing their religion. A number of them settled down there and thus began the Islamic influence in Xian. The lanes had tiny mosques, many general stores, restaurants, food stalls and places to buy souvenirs. We stopped at a very Chinese style minaret complete with a loudspeaker for the Muslim call to prayers.
As I was photographing the minaret, my friends ducked into some place and I lost track of them. I looked around, walked up and down the street and no luck. We all know how to get back to the hostel and that is always a good fallback plan for if and when we get seperated, so after a bit of searching, I just continued down the street, and looked at shops. There were little terracotta warriors, paintings, sculptures and all kinds of other souvenirs. I picked up a few things bargaining to less than half the stated price, wondering how bad I'd still been had. As I came upon older Chinese women with hijabs I found that they were very happy to learn that I am Muslim. I saw interesting mixes of Chinese and Arabic calligraphy. Eventually I made my way the the Great Mosque, where as a Muslim I got in for free. Nice to get that special treatment in a positive sense now and again :). The Great Mosque is a large, very Chinese style structure. It is interesting to communicate with some Arabic with the local Muslims. A few words that we use when referring to religious functions that are in Arabic were easy to communicate.I walked all the way through, and offered some prayers. Most of the mosque us a long courtyard with little alcoves and towers.
As I was about to leave, I as reunited with my friends. We hung around a while longer, then asked around about good food places. A boy named Abdul Rahman offered to show us the way to a good place to eat. We invited him to join us and made our way to a shop down several lanes for some bread bits in soup with beef. Abdul Rahman told us about his studies and the general history of the local Muslim community, all through Mike's translation skills. This area has more breads similar to naans than other parts of China we have seen thus far. Andy was in pretty bad shape from being sick, so he just drank some tea. He decided to stay with Omar at the mosque for a while, as Mike and I walked back through the city.
We walked passed all kinds of shopping plazas, and drank some plum juice on the way back. Later on, after several wrong turns, we made our way back to the hostel, having explored a chunk of the city.
