Advertisement
Published: September 10th 2007
Edit Blog Post
5th October
We woke early in eager anticipation of the day ahead. Our full days excursions were to be a trip to the White Goose Pagoda followed by a trip to the Terracotta Warriors. We took a short taxi ride to the Shangri La Golden Flower Hotel which was a very nice looking hotel to get picked up by our tour bus. Our first stop was the White Goose Pagoda, an impressive looking structure surrounded by small buildings in which monks still live and pray and go about their general daily lives. It was quite misty, and there was an option to climb the pagoda, but we declined as there would be nothing to see.
This place seemed to be full of Chinese families and in one corner was a small play area for the kids where we saw one little girl on a hobby horse but instead of it just rocking back and fourth it actually moved along it was very amusing.
Then it was back on to the tour bus to visit the Terracotta Army which was quite some distance away arriving around lunch time. Luckily our first stop when we arrived was one of the restaurants. The
food was really good and they were making fresh noodles, which was great to watch and was the basis for a great bowl of soup, of which I had three bowls! With a full stomach we set off to the first of three pits containing the warriors.
Our guide explained that the three pits that made up the site were in various stages of excavation. The archaeologists had commenced excavating in the 1970’s when two farmers discovered the site digging for a well. However, as soon as the painted figures are exposed to the air, the paint oxidises and the colour fades. Also the original building has harsher lighting which in the later building has been modified and the air temperature regulated. The government were looking for ways to preserve the remaining figures in the natural state.
Actually inside the smallest of the three pits, pit three, it was only partially excavated, and the archaeologists believed that this was the command centre. Only a few warriors were actually visible and they were stood behind their horses.
At the second pit, again much of the pit was still covered up, and we saw a glimpse of what was to
be revealed in pit one. It was mainly infantry in this pit.
The first, and largest of the three pits, is an impressive sight. The photos that you see of it make you assume that the entire pit is in fact excavated, when in fact that is not the case. A large proportion is excavated, but at least half of the area remains unexcavated. There are rows upon row of warriors, each with their own facial expression, armour pattern, hair style, and some knelt down as archers just missing their weapon.
At the rear of the building is a sort of “warrior hospital” where they attempt to reconstruct warriors from the pieces recovered from the archaeological digs. The experts believe that this is just a part of the complex, and further excavations could reveal other equally impressive sights. The Emperor is said to be buried on the top of a hill and the current excavations are some distance from that,. They think that these represent a sign of his standing and are protecting him from evil sprits, and closer to the actual burial sight there might be acrobats and jesters to entertain the Emperor on his way to
the afterlife. Our guide gave us plenty of time to take photos, which we did, before we moved onto the Exhibition Hall.
Inside the entrance there was a display containing a chariot which was well preserved, with its roof being made of a single piece of metal, which scientists now do not know how they did it as even using today’s technology it would be difficult to produce. The Hall also contained a number of fine examples of the different types of warrior on display which we were able to photograph close up. In the hallway on the way out, we got the opportunity to purchase the official guide book for the site and as luck would have it one of the farmers that had originally discovered the site was there doing a book signing. Then on the way back to the tour bus there were opportunitys to purchase more bargins like small replica warriors and postcards for just a couple of dollars. The replica factory we visited had full sized warriors for the garden which could be shipped back to the UK. We did however purchase some smaller replicas as a set which included the archer and the
horse.
On the way back to Xi’an, and with the light and visibility fading, we visited the Huaqing Hot Springs, where some of the party took the opportunity to take “in the waters” and bath their feet in the warm waters. There were also some lovely floral displays in the shapes of peacocks.
Upon our return to the hotel, Dad suggested that we try and eat out in Xi’an where we had seen some restaurants. We ventured out towards the local restaurants, where we tried to find someone that spoke any English, and a menu that we could understand. Two young restaurant waitresses spoke to us and convinced us that they had a menu in English. They took us upstairs, where we definitely were the only Europeans possibly that had ever been in, and we looked at the menu that they offered. The problem wasn’t that we didn’t understand the menu, but that the items on the menu we wanted they didn’t have - chicken, lamb and pork. They did however have camel’s foot and sheep’s brain! We made a swift exit, and headed more towards the centre of Xi’an. The restaurant
we chose had a more palatable menu, but very odd décor. There were Christmas lights and swinging seats, but the food was quite nice.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 22; qc: 94; dbt: 0.0988s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb