Day 9 - July 9

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Sites: Terracotta Warriors and Blue Goose Pagoda

Sorry for the delay. We have been traveling and I just haven’t kept up with the journal as much.

This was our first full day in Xian and the morning included a bus trip about an hour outside the city to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. The city itself is very beautiful and has about 8 million people, which is on a par with the number of people in NYC (10 million if you count all 5 Burroughs), as compared to 13.5 million people in Beijing.

While we are on the topic of population let me clarify a few interesting statistics. We learned that by 2010, China will be the largest English speaking country in the world. Right now, it is estimated that there are more people in university here than the entire population of the United States which is 306 million people compared to China’s 1.3 billion. China has the largest population at 1.3 billion which is almost 20% of the world’s population, more than India with about 17% and then the US with 4.5% of the world’s population.

Ok, so back to the warriors. They were constructed from clay during the Qin Dynasty (pronounced “chin”) in 200 BC under Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, the first of the Qin emperors. Although a short-lived reign, he is noted for several accomplishments during his time in power. He was the first to unite the many regions of China, constructed an extensive system of roads and canals, standardized written language and money and abolished feudalism and established provinces run by civilian governors. He also began to connect the walls across China where became the first version of the Great Wall. A testament to his reign and uniting of the regions, a sub-terranean mausoleum complex was constructed, containing an army of 7,000 life size clay warriors.

In March 1974, a farmer drilling for a well came across piece clay that came from these warriors. After notifying the government the farm was shut down and excavation began. The photos you will see show the largest pit (#1) and the two other pits that are still being excavated.

On the way back from the site, we took another bus ride, with a crazy driver, back for lunch. He had a thing about being passed, so although he was driving a bus for 40 people, we continued to swerve and go across the yellow line to overtake motorcycles, mopeds, trucks, other busses. We did manage to arrive safely to lunch with more Chinese food and an attached shop. The trick was to eat quickly to allow you enough time to browse, haggle and purchase before the group leaders ushered us to the bus.

In the afternoon we went to visit a site in the city of Xian, called the Blue Goose Pagoda. Dayanta, informally known as the "Big Goose Pagoda", is one of two Tang-dynasty pagodas that still stand in Xian. It was built during the reign of Emperor Xuan Zun. Standing seven stories tall (64 meters), the pagoda towers over the surrounding landscape and the Dacien temple complex that has grown up around it. Originally it was a brick structure five stories tall, but in the year 704 the two additional stories were added. The grounds and surrounding gardens were very peaceful and many members of the group decided to take a rest during the 2 hour visit. Lucy sat with LaTonya and Cheryl to have a drink and relax, while Matthew and I climbed the 250 stairs to the top of the 7th story to see the views of the city.
Our last dinner in Xian was a special trip to a well known dumpling restaurant. It was Cheryl’s birthday ( principal of Randallstown) and she decided to skip another night of Asian food so some of her friends joined her at Howard Johnson’s for an American dinner. We took the bus to the restaurant and had a fantastic dinner for 20+ varieties of dumplings. The custom is to dip the dumplings in either soy sauce or vinegar (very dark - looks like soy) and then eat. We had dumplings with chicken, pork, sausage, lamb, squid, vegetables, fish, duck, and lotus flower. Some of the dumplings were even designed to look like the contents, such as the lotus flower or fish dumplings (complete with a dough tail and little eyes). The meal was incredible and we were glad we took advantage of the chance to come.
Some of the participants decided to go to the bar street and although there is no drinking age in China I decided it was too early for Matthew to learn how to bar hop so we took a taxi back to the room and concluded our evening with a trip to Haagen Daaz for much needed ice cream dessert.

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Photos

In front of Pit 1
Largest pit of excavation of the warriors.

Matt and Lucy
Pagoda style lantern and gardens. At first each pagoda is so beautiful and unique.

Ed and Lucy
Now the pagodas are starting to get repititive, like one more pagoda...and we will scream!