China Trip Day 3 - Xian - Great Goose Pagoda, History Museum & Great Mosque

Our stay at the hotel do not include breakfast, we prefer to venture into food that is local. .... As usual it was cold outside and food was easy available near the hotel.

Steamed dumpling with minced meat.

This one with interesting ingredients .... good leh.

Veggie steamed dumpling.

We tried to eat a bit of everything if we can ... proceeded to a shop nearby for another savoury.

Shredded beef meat bun was the pick.

The meat bun .....I don't really like it but palatable.

Great Wild Goose Pagoda 大雁塔 is a Buddhist pagoda built in 652 during the tang Dynasty.

Repair work under way at the pagoda.

Xian was the starting point of the popular Silk Road where the influence of Buddha from India touched Xian.

Another UNESCO heritage site in China.

So this is one of the must visit places in Xian. 

Shaanxi History Museum - one of the huge state museums in China, Shaanxi was the imperial capital of China with more than 13 dynasties history found. 

Exhibit of terracotta warriors is also exhibited here.

The construction details of a typical section of a Great Wall of China.

During Tang Dynasty, chubby lady was considered sexy and pretty.

Our guide Michael took us here for a true local flavour and apparently a popular one.

Jo had a tangy flavoured noodle while I had a plain one.

This was the highlight of the lunch bun with shredded pork meat.

Thanks Mike for bringing us here for the wonderful food.

Back to Shaanxi History Museum where our car was waiting for us. That was the end of the local tour by Michael and we decided to visit the Great Mosque by ourselves.

This is the oldest and one of the renowned mosque in China found in 742.

The construction of this mosque is Chinese with Arabic lettering and decoration.

There is no dome nor traditional minarets found in the construction.

The majority of the work was constructed during the Ming Dynasty and further expanded in the Qing Dynasty.

There are more than 60,000 ethnic Chinese Muslim in Xian

I had the opportunity to meet Imam Ma Yi Ping at the mosque and later I went over to his shop. He wanted me to bring something back to Malaysia for his son who is studying in UIA, Gombak.

Imam Ma calligraphing a piece for me.

The master piece and thank you Tuan Haji Imam Ma!!!!

A walk around the corners of Xian before we leave for Bejing.

When will we be back to Xian???

Reluctantly we came out of the hotel into the cold night searching for dinner, this restaurant looks interesting for a hot & spicy steam boat meal. It was supposedly a Thai version.

The sauces that you can experiment with various combination - interesting & delicious.

The crowd was good, so was the food.... yummy yummy.

Our steam boat meal - we enjoyed it very much

The damage for two of us....seems very reasonable indeed.