Xi'an

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We arrived in Xian at 7am, bought our 17hr train ticket to Chengdu for that night, put our luggage in storage and set out to hit the tourist spots.

We asked around to find out what bus went to the Terracotta Warriors. A lady said bus 206. After getting pointed in 20 different directions we finally found bus 206. We asked the driver if he went to Terracotta Warriors but he didn't speak any English. We put 'terracotta' into the translator and he still didn't understand. We asked people on the bus and we wre still no further ahead. Tris spotted a big sign that said Tourist Info so we hopped off. Luckily we did because we needed bus 306, not 206. We figured out how to get back to town centre, and after again being pointed in a million different directions we found bus 306.

So one day some farmers were digging a well and came across an underground vault that eventually yielded thousands of teracotta warrior's and horses in battle formation. There Terracotta Warriors is one of the most famous archeological finds in the world. This subterranian life-size army of thousands has silently stood guard over the grave of China's first unifier for over two millennia. It is believed that Qin Shi Huang was terrified of the vanquishd spirits awaiting him in the afterlife, or as most archaeologists believe, he expected his rule to continue in death as it had in life. No two faces on the soldiers are alike.

We started in the smallest pit, Pit 3. A lot of it is still being escavated. This pit contained 73 warriors and horses. It is believed that this pit was used as the army headquarters due to the high number of high ranking officials unearthed here.

Pit 2 is also still being escavated and contains around 1300 warriors and horses. The level of detail in the sculputures is extraordinary: the expressions, hairstyles, armour and even tread on the footwear are all unique.

Pit 1 is the largest. Pit 1 contains 6000 warriors and horses all facing the same direction, ready for battle.



Next we had planned on renting a bike and riding around the wall of Xian, but to our disappointment biking is not allowed at the moment due to construction. So instead we headed to the Chinese Muslim Quarter in hopes to see the Grand Mosque. That too was under construction. To waste some time we walked back to the train station. It took us 1 1/2 hours.

Waiting at the station, as Tris put it, there was a different breed of Chinese waiting to board a train. We are assuming they are from some sort of hill tribe by the looks of their clothing and luggage ie: rice sacks with rope tied around to make a backpack. They all looked at us, and tried speaking to us in Chinese but of course we couldn't really converse. A man saw some english in a newspaper he had so he brought me the page. I think it was for them to learn english words as it had chinese beside it, and then just one english word. Its not like i could read the english and learn what it said in chinese... i dont know characters. I pretended to be thrilled to have the paper and thanked him.

Our train got delayed an hour. People who had bought standing room could switch trains so we watched as everyone fought their way to the front of the line in hopes to get an okay spot on the train.

The train to Chengdu pulled in on time, though it left late.



Note: photo order and descriptions messed up. dont feel like fixing them

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