Unable to snag tickets for the Shaanxi History Museum during the National Day holiday, I quickly opted for the Xi'an Museum instead. It turned out to be a delightful surprise. The museum and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda of Jianfu Temple share a grounds, one pagoda and one museum, surrounded by ancient trees, a tranquil oasis amidst the bustling city. Fortunately, the museum's opening hours were extended to 8:00 PM during the National Day holiday, and we didn't hire a guide; we simply watched the tour on Bilibili.
The museum and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda are connected, so we visited the pagoda first. We were lucky enough to have a lovely little guide who led us around, telling us the thousand-year-old stories of the ancient pagoda, trees, bell tower, drum tower, and stone tablets—a wonderful explanation. The Small Wild Goose Pagoda has a wonderful environment, free from crowds, making it the most comfortable attraction of our Xi'an trip. We relaxed and rested until 5 pm, and when the crowds thinned out, we went back in. We went directly to the basement level, where the museum's most prized artifacts are located, in Halls 2 and 3. We followed the volunteer guides as we went, seeing the Tang tri-colored flying horse and the gilded dragon, listening to their detailed explanations of the artifacts' stories, learning about Chang'an's thousand-year-old cultural heritage, and experiencing the stories of artifacts from the Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties.