For some reason I never really had much interest in travelling to China, until in the past few years it's started to grow on me a bit. Although I've been to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Well, if I ever get around to going to mainland China I guess Xi'an should be on top of the destination list, what with the terracotta warriors and all, so let's see if this little book will give me more reasons to go. Judging from the start some degree of amusement is to be expected: "Xi'an is regarded as one of the four great ancient capitals of the world, together with Athens in Greece, Cairo in Egypt and Rome in Rome". Right on!

Okay, it's pretty clear that this is not your regular guide book; it's published by China National Tourism Administration so I guess it's a book-like tourist leaflet more than anything else. Good to know, I'm certainly not taking this one with me when I go then, I absolutely prefer more practical and slightly less biased travel guides! Also, when I read about, say, taxis - I really want to know how much they cost, do I need to haggle and should I expect scams or arguments from the drivers. The last thing I need to know is "taxis in Xi'an mainly consist of Citroën-Fukang, Jetta, Xiali and Auto-cars, in addition to some Santana cars". I'm sorry, but WHAT? :D

Forgetting the clumsy advertisement-type text in the book; besides the warriors I'm always interested in some Shehuo, translated here as folk festive activities. Especially the Meihu opera sounds fascinating. There seems to be no shortage of temples, pagodas, ancient sites, mountains or parks, so I'd enjoy those, although plenty of places in Asia offer all that... most even with less crowds and pollution! But terracotta warriors are nowhere else so I guess Xi'an stays on my to-do-some-day list :)

Some reading for your trip to China - or wherever :)

I only came to Rovaniemi =)
Anyway the book looked interesting and I'm looking for a book which name begins with letter X...

I read this book and it is interesting altouhg I'm not planning to travel to China.

Left the book in book swap.