Xi'an City Wall - A Five-Sided Rectangle

I've seen the Xi'an city wall referred to a both the last remaining city wall in China, and the most complete city wall remaining in China.  Suffice to say Xi'an still has a city wall.  Most, or all, of China's other historically larger cities that had city walls have removed them or failed to maintain them.  Xi'an's original city wall was constructed sometime around the 600s-900s AD during the Tang Dynasty.  Originally constructed from dirt, lime, and glutinous rice, it was enhanced to it's current state early in the Ming Dynasty (late 1300s).  The wall has been renovated three times since, the most recent in 1983.  The current wall is 12 meters tall, approximately 14km long forming a rectangle with battle stations every 120 meters, and is surrounded by a moat.

Today the wall is a tourist attraction and site of marathons every weekend of November.  Every other day, tourists can walk, run, and/or bike on the city wall.  We rented bikes.  And despite my strong protest, Laura insisted on a bike-built-for-two.  She paid dearly.  Not possessing the balance required to stabilize the bike with my considerable weight on the back, she was relegated to the back seat.  Much like the back seat of the bus, every bump is magnified on the back seat of the bike.  Particularly one as rickety and lacking in cushion as this one.  Combine that with a cobblestone-like surface minus a plethora of cobblestones, and you have one sore rear 14km later.  The bike-built-for-two and terrain also resulted in a lack of pictures what with me focused on balance and avoiding potholes and Laura hanging on for dear life.

Laura's behind will disagree with me, but I quite enjoyed the tour of Xi'an from the top of the city wall despite getting "lost".  Getting lost on a rectangle you ask?  Yes, I have submitted inquiries to the assorted colleges and universities the five well-educated adults among us attended for evaluation of their practices.  We all joked at the fact that there was a map of the rectangle on the back of the tickets we purchased for admission.  The map wasn't to identify city landmarks throughout the 14km circuit, it was merely a map of the rectangular 14km circuit.  Bikes rented, off we went to.  After all counting four turns, we stopped to turn our bikes in.  Strange that they didn't have our paperwork (everything in China has paperwork and gets the red stamp).  As we continued to chat with the rental place to resolve the issue, someone began noting our surroundings remembering a building near where we started that was not near where we stopped.  Perplexed, and all agreeing we had made four turns, we asked the rental place what gate we were at.  East Gate.  We had started at South Gate.  We still had a quarter of the loop to complete.  To this day I remain mystified.  I convinced myself it was actually a pentagon until Google maps confirmed it is in fact a rectangle.  Either we severely overestimated the intelligence of the group, or Xi'an has developed a five-sided rectangle.  I spend a good amount of free time in search of a solution to the five-sided rectangle.

From the base of the wall at the South Gate.

A warrior demonstration.

On the wall on a bike-built-for-two.  Brilliant!

Matt and Paul made the wiser choice.

Looking down one side of the wall from one of four (or five?) corners.

Looking down another side from the same corner.