Jason's Xian Trip

Last week I (Hayden's daddy) traveled to China for work. Here's a self portrait during my 12 hour layover in Hong Kong.

More of Hong Kong from a ferry boat. Hong Kong is one of the densest cities on earth with more highrise buildings than any other city. It is surrounded by steep hills and rain forest resulting in development that goes up rather than sprawling outward.

After the layover in Hong Kong I traveled to Xi'an in mainland China. Unlike the tropical climate of Hong Kong in Xi'an it snows! 45 minutes by car outside of Xi'an is the site of our project.

We assisted our client in the design of a spa / resort. Part of our site visit include visiting a nearby resort in order to see the competition.

Portions of the resort are very nice.

Here is the project team including our client's in the middle.

Here is a view looking at our project site.

The site tour was made much more pleasurable with the addition of the rubber shoes that our driver graciously bought for us.

Good thing for the rubber boots.

Here is my co-worker presenting ideas to our client.

Here is part of the site plan for the site.

Xi'an is the home of the "Terra Cotta Warriors." We took an afternoon off to visit the museum. The Terra Cotta Warriors were sculpted in 200 BC to "protect" the grave of the the Qin Dynasty's Emperor. In this building there are over 6000 life size statues and each one is unique.

More Terra Cotta Warriors.

Here is a nice tree lined street in Xi'an.

I was expecting Xi'an to be small city only to find a city of over 8 million people.

The last day the client's driver took me to ride a bike around the top of the Xi'an wall. The city has expanded beyond the confines of the wall but the wall remains and is a popular tourist attraction.

Here is Mr. Young (the client's driver).

Riding bikes on the top of the wall.

Surrounding the wall is a nice park and a water canal. The guy in white is doing some tai chi in the park.