China
This section of the city is amazing. It has a real Middle Eastern feel combined with far east. There is one main street next to the ancient city wall which you can turn off to reach the Great Mosque. The street is alive with people and the perfect place to sit and enjoy the unique Chinese Muslim culture and food of spiced meats, noodles with a type of bread dough and delicious spicy flatbreads. I enjoyed many a beer here watching the world go by.
City centre
China never fails to throw out a surprise for you now and again. Xi'an was once the capital city and the starting point for the Silk Road to the Middle East and ultimately Europe. Xi'an was thus pollinated by a variety of influences and today it is still an oasis of Islam in a secular sea.
The Muslim Quarter has one of the best street markets in China for souvenir shopping, with trinkets on show from Little Red Books to Arab coffee pots and everything in between. It's also a great place to see life as it once might have been, when China was a centre of world trade much as it is now.
Xi Dajie, near the Bell Tower
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