Impressions of Xi'an

Well, we've left Beijing now, and I'm writing this from our room in the four-star Xi'an Fukai Hotel. We flew in from Beijing at about noon (free lunch on the plane!) and headed towards the city. Our tour guide for Xi'an, a cool guy named Tony, told us a bunch of history stuff as we rode, though only a handful of us were awake.
Xi'an was the capital of ancient China. They say if you want to see pre-modern China, go to Beijing. If you want to see modern China, go to Shanghai. And if you want to see ancient China, go to Xi'an. And ancient it is, at least on the interior. Xi'an is interesting in that it's sort of divided into 3 or 4 roughly concentric rings. The outermost ring is the outskirts of town, with all the industrial areas. As part of their clean-up project, all coal-burning facilities have to be in this outer area. There's a highway that goes all the way around Xi'an known as the Second Ring; this encircles what is essentially modern Xi'an. Here you have all your new construction, and it looks like most other cities (only, you know, excessively smoggy). Then the innermost section lies within the walls of the ancient city, back from Ming Dynasty times (we're talking turn of the 1st century). The interior isn't very big (you can bike around the walls in an hour and a half), but this is where the night life is. All the buildings have to conform to ancient-style architecture, so you've got a strange contrast of the sloping tiled roofs over flashing digital displays. This is where our hotel is, only a couple blocks from the heart of the city, literally (the bell tower directly in the middle was used to announce the time back in the day). The room is sweet, we're staying in a four and a half-star hotel, superb accommodations. I'm getting pictures up right after this, so you'll be able to see :)
Ah, I suppose that's all I have to say. We've got two full days of activities, so expect more stories. Tomorrow we're going to see the terracotta soldiers and visit the Tang Dynasty palace, then the day after we're going to the Shaanxi Museum, Beilin, and the Wild Goose Pagoda. So, yeah, expect a wave of blog and Flickr action!