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The train took 14 hours, putting our arrival right at noon. Sam and Parker knew where the hotel was according to a few maps and after asking a few random people and walking through an interesting park, we found it. The park was a shortcut to our hotel, but was also a tourist site in itself! There were several randomly placed carnival/fair style roller coasters that looked as old as the City Wall, but a bit more unsafe, ha. And the best part was, they were actually still in use as we found out yesterday. In the morning and around late afternoon there were over, at least, 200 people in this small park. Elderly women performing terrible costumed-dances, a few Kong Fu groups, a few Taichi groups, and several badminton players some playing with a hackey-sack style birdie.
On the way to the Bus Station we hit up a street vendor where I got some Niu Rou Bing, Danbo Bing, and Rou Jia Mo - a beef cake, an egg cake, and a well-known local snack. Rou Jia Mo is the closest thing China has to a beef burger, basically it's Pita buns with greasy, fatty, and soft lamb meat
Rou Jia Mo
Closest thing China has to a burger placed in between - quite delicious, but no Wendy's! On the bus we met some very annoying, air-headed British chicks but luckily they didn't follow us into the attraction.
At the Terracotta Army site, we saw Tombs 1, 3, and 2 and then visited the museum. This Eighth (Horrific) Wonder of the World was created under Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259-210BC), first emperor of the Qin Dynasty and founder of China’s first empire. He started the construction of the Great Wall and placed his capital at Xi'an. The warriors are a replica of his army and were created in preparation for his death. The figures include strong warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. 700,000 forced laborers were sacrificed to construct his tomb. All workers and childless concubines were interred (killed and buried) with him to safeguard its secrets. A farmer discovered the ruins back in 1974.
Pit 1 is the largest and is considered the main force with hundreds of infantry, a few horses and chariots, and one or two officials. It was unearthed in '76. Less than half is still under excavation (or being reburied to preserve the artifacts). The soldier's paint was worn away
by two different fires caused by thieves and when the capital raided by General Xiang Yu's army, less than five years after Qin's death.
Pit 3 is considered the Command Center. It is a square (slightly rectangular) arrangement of Spearman, Calvary and Generals. The amount of detail that still exists on each soldier is very impressive. I enjoyed trying to compare and differentiate hat/hairstyles and attributing the soldiers' rank accordingly, ha.
Pit 2 was also rectangular and contained kneeling archers, spearman, general, cavalry, etc. Some of the best preserved statues were also displayed in this pit area, including a few of the 40,000 weapons still left. Though most of the wood either burned or rotted away. An interesting fact about the weapons is that highly advanced form of glaze that was not discovered by the U.S. until the 20th Century was used to help preserve the weapons! Crazy!
After finishing the Pits, we visited the museum where we saw several more well-preserved artifacts, with some very intricate metal chariots with complicated machinery from the necropolis west of Qin's mausoleum. We also got to see the largest handmade puppets in the world! They were the ones China used
Hopscotch anyone?
Outside the Terracotta Army Site for the Beijing Olympics to represent the fusion of past traditions with the future. They were huge. As the rain died down, we headed back toward the buses and hopped on one to Xi'an.
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Natalie
non-member comment
I really enjoyed seeing these pictures! In June 2009 I was able to travel to China, and experience the Terra-Cotta armies myself. If only everyone could have the chance to see other countries and experience other cultures.