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Xian is the capital of Shaanxi Provence and one of the ancient cities of China. We were drawn here by the history and the chance to see the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang and more importantly its guards... the Terracotta Army.
Having survived our 15 hour train journey from Chengdu intact...actually it wasn't that bad (and at least we were off the roads for a little while), it was just a little surreal being cooped up in a box no more than 2 metres by 1.5 metres with two other inmates. Now I know Rich had been hoping for a couple of young, hot females, well as the photo shows…1 out of 3 is not bad. Actually our companions were lovely, not a lot of communication was going on but they were fascinated by our 500 playing.
Given the 1st of May is a holiday and we are told the whole of China will be on the move, we decided on our first day in Xi’an it would be wise to beat the crowds and to visit the Terracotta Warriors. The tomb was only discovered in 1974 by some peasants toiling in the fields and has become one of
the modern wonders of the world. The Terracotta Army was buried some 2,000 years ago to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang. It is very hard to describe what we saw and what we felt and the photos certainly do not do it justice. It is one of those places that you just stand and marvel at, you can’t fully understand it nor comprehend the scale or enormity of what you are witnessing. Most of the warriors and horses have been smashed by either the original burial or the 2000 years spent underground and have been lovingly restored. How the people had the patience to do this is beyond me but the results are stunning. In all we spent about 4 hours walking around the 3 tombs of the warriors and the building housing the rebuilt horses and chariots.
Today we are just back from a 14km walk around the Xi’an city wall. The inner city is ringed by a wall built in 1370 of rammed earth and converted to its current brick construction in 1568. The wall is 14km long and stands 12m high. It took us a good 5 hours to walk it, slowed by taking
photos, taking in the views and generally just meandering along its sights. The city below is a striking dichotomy…incredibly rich whilst also alarmingly poor…witnessing new temples standing alongside workers toiling without any form of protection in construction sites to recycle bricks.
Our first night in town we decided to try out a local hotpot restaurant. Given our apparent lack of knowledge and cooking ability and the fact that the place was deserted the staff took pity on us and enjoyed showing the foreigners how to cook properly whilst teaching us some mandarin. The food was awesome, great to eat fresh spinach, sprouts and Chinese cabbage whilst we are assuming it was beef that we ate with it, it could have been anything. We will probably head back there tonight.
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