Xi'an

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I'm currently in Xi'an. The ride from Beijing was a long and uncomfortable 14 hour ride in a hard seat. In China you can travel via soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat, hard seat and finally standing. If you are going anywhere of considerable distance, definitely avoid the hard seat!! The ride was interesting though. We got to sit beside numerous Chinese people and experience the way that many Chinese people travel. We tried teaching them a card game, but they were either not interested or weren't able to catch on. I then asked them to show us how to play one of their games. It was quite similar to a game I've played before, but with the addition of runs (I think the game "Asshole"...??). It helped kill about 2 hours, but there was still a long part of the journey left!

The city has about 8 million people and has ancient city walls still surrounding the inner part of the city. These walls are about 40 feet high and were used to defend against attacks. They total length of the walls is just less than 14kms. I walked around the whole wall and got to see very different sides of the city. Some areas where very developed with larger buildings and very nice parks. Many areas were being developed - the skyline was littered with cranes. Also, a few areas were noticeably poor. A couple of buildings were falling apart, being able to see the inside walls - yet it looked as if some peoples belongings were still inside.

The city is famous for being the home to the Terracotta Warriors. These statues were discovered about 30-40 years ago by the digging of a proposed well. The area has 3 different locations - each one a pit in the ground.

I'm a little behind on the blogging, so for the rest of Xi'an I'll just try to briefly sum up each picture...

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Photos

Train ride from Beijing to Xi'an
Here we are playing a Chinese card game. Notice the man passed out by the window on the table and the other man to the right...

Bell Tower
This ancient Bell Tower is in the middle of the city.

Xi'an Kaiyuan Shopping Mall
A pretty big shopping mall located right in the centre of the city.

Shuyuan Hostel
This is where we stayed for nights. We wanted to stay less, but we couldn't get a hard sleeper out of Xi'an until then. The rooms weren't the greatest, but the cafe area had a nice atmosphere.

Banpo Village
This is the remains of an old village. The village dates back 6,000 years. What you see here is the remaining foundation of how they would build their houses/huts.

Terracotta Warrior - Charles Version
This is what I would look like if I were to be made into a terracotta warrior...

Large tour lunch
When we went to see the terracotta warriors we stopped for a large buffet style lunch. Notice how quickly the sweet and sour pork is being eaten...

Pit 1
This is Pit 1 - the largest of the three pits where the terracotta warriors are. This pit holds an estimated 6,000 soldiers - none of which have the same face.

Pit 2
This area was much smaller. I think it held about 150 warriors.

Close up of Pit 2
These ones either haven't had their heads put on, or they have been broken.

Painted Face
Apparently all of the warriors were fully painted. However, after being unearthed and exposed to the oxygen caused the paint to decay. Here is a picture of one of the faces with colour.

Kneeling Archer
This pose is of a kneeling archer.

Drum Tower at Night
This large building was just to the west of the Bell Tower. It was the home to numerous large drums. Directly north of the Drum Tower was the Muslim district - a great place to find a change in food!

Drawbridge
This drawbridge was located near the South Gate on the wall that surrounded that city.

View from the wall - looking south
Notice the haze...it was very smoggy.