Xi'an (Day 2)

May 29^th

Terra Cotta Warrior Day!

Two years ago I went with my mom to Epcot in Orlando, Florida for our Mother-Daughter weekend. As we were visiting the different “countries” at Epcot, we went to “China” and saw there version of the Terra Cotta Warriors. I remember standing in the room with the Epcot version of the Terra Cotta Warriors and telling my mom, “I am going to go and see that one day.” And here I am, getting on a bus to the warriors. The Warriors are a little why from Xi’an but we went straight there this morning.

There was so much mind blowing information about this army that is was difficult to wrap my head around. It is so fascinating! So here are a few of the facts:

-         -  Emperor Qin started building when he became emperor at 13

-         -  Construction involved over 700,000 workers

-         -  There are over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses

-         - The warriors are one mile from Emperor Qin’s tomb

-         -  It is believed he built an entire city underground for himself in the afterlife

-         -  The warriors are 6 feet tall, were painted bright colors and no two were sculpted with the same face

-         -  No one was to know about the warriors and everyone involved was buried alive to keep the secret

-         -  In 1974 a farmer found the warriors while digging a well

-          That farmer still comes and signs autographs one day a week at the museum and he was there when we were there!

They have three different pits currently. One is completely excavated; it is home to all of the officers and a chariot & horses. Most of the chariots don’t still exist since they were made of wood and did not last buried since 210 BC. 

The second pit was mostly not excavated warriors. There was still a lot of work to be done on this pit but you could see where the other pits had started from. 

And Pit #1 was definitely the most impressive. It is the pit with over 6,000 warriors all lined up. Set up like they were originally intended and most have been put back together. In the back of the pit, many people worked to excavate other areas, clean and piece together other warriors and horses.

In between visiting all three Pits, we had a really fun lunch experience. We were a little weary that it would be similar to our lunch experience before the Great Wall. The meal started off the same, typical Americanize Chinese food but then they told us about the noodles. They were making from scratch noodles, right there in front of you. It was so cool! I still can’t figure out how they did it. One guy had a big blob of dough that he would carve off pieces using a potato peeler thingy and the other would use his hands, a lot of flour and beating on the counter to make thin noodles. THEY.WERE.AMAZING!

It was truly an experience that is difficult to put into words and one that will not be forgotten.

Jed and I were not really interested in getting terra cotta warrior figurines as a souvenir for us or anyone else until Lucy was giving us an intro before we went into the park. She told us that if we did want to purchase the warrior figurines, make sure you buy them from the museum gift shop. The ones in the gift shop are made from the materials in the actual pits. She caused us about the farmers that try and sell the same warriors out in the parking area and walking around the pits, she told us that even though they were cheap, they were not made as well and many were made with animal poop! Well, as soon as Jed heard that, he had to have them to give to a friend as a gift. And I am so glad to report that thanks to the tag team effort of Jed and Tim, our friends were able to get quite a unique gift all the way from China!

On our way back from the Warriors, we had another stop at a Jade Factory. At this point, we were all a little disappointed. We had already seen a Jade Factory and it felt like a bit of a waste of time since none of us were really interested but they did have bathrooms so that was nice. It wasn’t too long before we were back on the bus and headed for the hotel.

We got back to the hotel pretty early today so Team Adventure (Tim, Jed, Dave, Gina & I) headed out to the City Wall. We had read in the Lonely Planet book that you could walk or bike the City Wall. 

We went with the bike option and it was so amazing! It was a 9 mile trip around the entire city and we laughed and screwed around, took pictures and videos of all the sites and of us singing songs. We made such fools of ourselves that others were taking pictures of us!

After our ride, we were hungry so we set off on another interesting adventure. We found a place that was a must to try according to our book. The first obstacle was finding the place. What the book was saying and what the locals were saying wasn’t matching up. So after quite some confusion and some interesting “conversations” with people that doesn’t speak English, we headed to the third floor of this building. We did finally figure out where the place was (the locals were right) and were kind of surprise. They were not very friendly with tourists. Guess they don’t realize that they are featured in a travel book. We had fun with it anyway. Poor Tim had to shred this bread into tiny little pieces. We are not entirely sure about it but they put the shredded bread in the mutton, we think. It was clearly a local place with lots of character and a very memorable experience.

After dinner, we were ready to explore a little more of this city. We had heard a lot about the Muslim Quarter so we headed there. It was really neat. There were a ton of street vendors making all kinds of very different food, shops with antiques, and plenty of souvenir shops. We walked down alley after dark alley of different shops until just about all of them had closed. 

About that time, we decided to go find the Mosque. They are famous for their Mosque in Xi’an. I think the sign to the Mosque that was showing us to go down the deserted, dark, scary alley to get there says it all. 

When you see a sign like that you HAVE to go check it out!

Much to our surprise, the Mosque was closed at 11pm at night and you couldn’t see anything over the huge wall that surrounded the Mosque. It was a bit of a bust but a really fun random adventure.

It looked like everything was closing for the night so we headed back towards the hotel. That is when things got weird. It is hard to put into words the things we saw on our way back. We have been walking around the city for a day and a half and went we got back to the main road to the hotel that we had walked quite a few times before it became a completely different road.

Some of the things that we saw (keep in mind it was a random Tuesday evening):

-          HUGE telescopes to see the moon (3 of them along the way) and for 20 yuan you can look in them

-          Carnival style games on the side walk

-          Puppies & kitten in a cage that were for sale

-          Designer bags on a blanket for sale

-          Switchblades on a blanket for sale

-          Tattoo shop inside the back of a van

-          Outdoor kitchens rolled out on street corners

The van that does tattoos. No kidding

This city clearly had a different night life then what you see and experience during the day. I am so glad we were able to see that. I wish we would have more time here. I really like this city but we are off to Shanghai in the morning.