"Hello, passengers! Ticket check-in has begun for the D1970 train from Chengdu to Xi'an. Passengers taking the D1970 train, please pack your luggage and go to ticket gate No. 6 to check in..." Chen Xing squeezed through the crowd towards the ticket check-in point.
At this time when locals go out to work, there are too many people in the waiting hall. Not to mention the location, even the aisles are occupied.
Chen Xing could only be grateful for his decision to go to Xi'an. This train departs from Yibin West and heads to Xi'an North. The cities it passes through are not popular cities for working, so there are a few talents. Otherwise, it would be difficult to buy tickets to other places.
I found my seat and as soon as I sat down, someone took the seat next to me. Still not a beauty. Every time Chen Xing takes the train, he expects to see a young beauty next to him, but he never does so.
He was a middle-aged man on a business trip. He wore a blindfold and was ready to rest after getting in the car. He seemed to have no intention of talking.
But the man opposite Chen Xing was a talkative, and he soon started chatting with several people around him.
"Where are you all from?"
"Guangyuan, go home." The person next to him said. Chen Xing said: "Go to Xi'an and travel, how about you."
"I work in Xi'an as a chef in a restaurant. Xi'an is great and has many attractions..." The young man talked very enthusiastically and talked a lot about his life as an apprentice in Xi'an and also talked about a lot of secrets in the kitchen, but What Chen Xing remembers most clearly is what he said: "Don't go to Huimin Street when you arrive. The food is expensive and not delicious. Search Dapiyuan on the navigation. Everything in Huimin Street is available here. It tastes good too..." This made Chen Xing know the names of two places in Xi'an.
Huimin Street, Dapiyuan. Sounds like there are still two food courts? A few hours passed by in a hurry, and the scenery outside the window changed from the mountains and countless caves to the endless plains, and the field of vision was more than twice as wide.
Every time he takes a train like this that passes through Sichuan Province, Chen Xing laments how difficult it was to enter Sichuan in ancient times.
In modern times, for the convenience of travel, caves are drilled everywhere in Sichuan Province. In ancient times, such conditions certainly did not exist, so one had to climb mountains and ridges.
That's why Li Bai's eternal masterpiece "The road to Shu is as difficult as climbing to the sky." The train stopped slowly.
"Arrived at the station?" The middle-aged man next to Chen Xing woke up and took off his blindfold. Chen Xing nodded and replied, "Well, we're here." After the train stopped, Chen Xing took down his things from the luggage rack on the train and followed the people in front of him out of the Xi'an train station.
Like train stations in major cities across the country, the first thing tourists see when they step out of the station is not the beautiful scenery of Xi'an, but the various people who come to sell hourly rooms, black cars, and restaurants to solicit customers.
Chen Xing doesn't need a car or an hourly room, but he has to eat. So I followed a person to their restaurant.
It’s not very far. If you go around the station and turn to the right, there are many restaurants lined up, and the kitchens are all outside. The aroma is very strong, and you can probably smell it from across the street.
The waiter who brought Chen Xing over said, "What can you have, boss? Our mutton steamed buns are very famous. Do you want one?" Chen Xing looked at the menu, which included mutton steamed buns and high-quality mutton steamed buns.
According to what the person in the car said, high-quality ones are meant to deceive tourists. If you want to eat, choose ordinary ones, so Chen Xing ordered an ordinary one for 28 yuan, and then ordered two steamed buns.
There are cut and uncut buns, and didn’t Chen Xing come here just to experience the new local things?
Of course you have to do it manually. So the restaurant served a bowl of steamed buns to Chen Xing. It was just a bowl with two steamed buns ordered by Chen Xing inside. It was not very big, probably only two circles larger than the rim of a coffee cup, and about two centimeters thick.
What to do? Just break it off? Fortunately, the boss saw that Chen Xing didn't understand anything, so he said, "Just break the buns into pieces and put them in that bowl."
"Thank you." After saying thank you, Chen Xing began to tear the pancake slowly. While tearing it, Chen Xing asked: "Boss, isn't this just pancake? Why do people here like to call this steamed bun?" The boy who brought Chen Xing in I have already gone to the train station to recruit new customers, and there is only one middle-aged man left in the store who looks like a chef and a boss.
Hearing Chen Xing ask this question, he said with a smile: "You don't know this. Don't underestimate our humble-looking buns. The reason why they are called buns, not cakes, is explained. Based on this alone, This proves its long history!" The chef's mysterious words aroused curiosity among many people around him.
Even some locals don’t know why pancakes are called steamed buns, not to mention that most of the people here are tourists from out of town.
While the boss was cooking outside, he said to the customers in the store: "This steamed bun is said to have been first introduced from Gansu. Ancient people believed that Gansu is the place where the sun sets. In ancient Chinese, the word Mo is It means the sun sets. And steamed buns are a combination of the word "Shijiamo". They are also called the food of the place where the sun goes down. I don't know how it is spread outside, but in our Shaanxi province, steamed buns generally refer to various steamed buns. Baked pasta." Many people in the store nodded and learned useless knowledge.
Steamed buns are food plus mo, and this combination indeed conforms to the ancient rules for creating words. Shaanxi is indeed a place with countless historical allusions.
Just like the city of Xi'an, it is said that in this city, even if farmers turn over the soil while farming, they may dig ancient tombs.
The boss came over and took a look at the steamed buns in Chen Xing's bowl and said, "Young man, your steamed buns are not good. You need to break them into smaller pieces. The size of a fingernail is enough."
"..." Chen Xing was really trying to save trouble and make things worse. But it would be too troublesome to make it as big as a fingernail. Does it take more than ten or twenty minutes just to break the pancakes to eat a mutton steamed bun?
Ten minutes later, the boss took Chen Xing's bowl and scooped out a bowl of mutton soup. The mutton soup still smells good, and the smell of mutton is very strong, which indirectly proves that the mutton used here is indeed authentic mutton, not some messy synthetic meat.
But the taste of mutton, in the final analysis, isn’t it just the smell of mutton? Chen Xing frowned after taking a bite.
It’s not that it’s not delicious. The texture of the mutton is very chewy. The salty aroma is completely integrated into the mutton, and then invades the steamed bun below. Because it is broken into pieces and soaked for less time, it tastes chewy and delicious. .
Well, at least Chen Xing experienced the fun of making steamed buns. But the lingering mutton smell is always present in this bowl of soup.
Chen Xing was used to eating Jianyang mutton soup without the smell of mutton in his hometown, but when he tasted this kind of soup with the smell of mutton, he was not used to it.
I guess people in other areas can accept this taste. Apart from this, this bowl of mutton steamed buns still tastes better than most of the food Chen Xing has eaten outside Sichuan Province, but you have to endure the smell of mutton on your body for a whole day after eating it. The smell is hard to avoid.
After eating his first meal in Xi'an, Chen Xing followed the navigation system, scanned a car and headed towards the ancient city wall.
Xi'an, a famous city through the ages, is an important place in every dynasty. The necessity of city walls has also been mentioned. Moreover, because it is located in a plain, the style is different from the city walls in Sichuan Province, so Chen Xing named Xi'an's ancient city walls. As my first stop when I came to Xi'an.
Although riding a bicycle is a little more tiring than taking the subway, you can still see the scenery on the streets of Xi'an. Compared with the huge crowds during winter and summer vacations and various holidays, Xi'an in February is not the peak tourist season.
Fortunately, in Chen Xing's eyes, the charm of the ancient city does not change with the change of seasons. The long wind blows across the mountains, and thousands of years of trees and city walls intersect in the city, also covering the ancient city with colorful clothes.
Coming in this season, some trees still have snowflakes on them, and the scenery is just right, especially pleasant. There are many gates in the Xi'an city wall. Standing under the city wall and looking at it, I feel that the city wall is really high.
How were cities attacked in ancient times? Can this kind of city wall really be breached if there are enough defenders? Tickets to the venue cost 54 per person, so Chen Xing bought a ticket and walked up.
Compared with France, which charges euros for tickets, domestic attractions are much cheaper. However, young people can visit many attractions in Paris for free, especially many museums.
On the contrary, in China, elderly people can visit many attractions for free. Chen Xing thought for a while and realized that the national conditions were also related.
Young people abroad don't have much money, but old people have money, so they provide free admission to young people, allowing many students to visit a large number of museums.
Domestic elderly people also have money, but they are reluctant to use it. Instead, they are very good to their children and are willing to give their own retirement money to their children.
That's probably it. There is an obvious place behind the wall with many bicycles. This is where you can rent a car.
Apart from here, there are also many colorful lanterns around. The first thing that catches the eye is the two giant traditional lion dances, and then the entire city wall is full of various colorful lanterns. However, it is daytime and all the colorful lanterns are not lit. I think it will be beautiful at night.
Lantern Festival? This word flashed through Chen Xing's mind. As a native of Sichuan Province and Eastern Sichuan, Chen Xing is no stranger to the lantern festival.
From ancient times to modern times, the most powerful and extravagant lantern festival in the country is in Zigong, not far from the New Territories. His parents took him there once before, and he still vividly remembers the bustling night scene.
Is there also a lantern festival held on the Xi'an City Wall? Chen Xing became a little interested and looked at the time. There were still at least six hours before dark.
Let's stroll around the city wall more, Chen Xing thought to himself, no matter what, he should watch the lantern festival here before leaving.
After taking a few photos, Chen Xing walked to the car rental point. There are two types of bicycles you can rent here, one is an electric bicycle, and the other is an ordinary bicycle, the one driven by human power.
If you don't want to, you can also take a sightseeing bus, but this method is expensive and you can't get off the bus to enjoy the scenery anytime and anywhere.
Chen Xing was very confident in his physical strength and rented a bicycle.
