Weekend in Xi'an - Days 15+16

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I haven't written in a while because we just got back from our weekend trip to Xi'an, and I didn't have my laptop with me. I also got sick finally. I was expecting to get sick at least once here from the food, or water, or weather, or pollution, or all of them. But I thought it would have been sooner. The good thing is it only lasted for a day. The bad thing is, I couldn't go to the gym that day. haha just kidding, but really. But I'm fine now, I got sick two days before we went to Xi'an so I was fine there and I'm ok now. I had to have a day of recovery and not too much strenuous activity, the day after, so we still haven't seen Mao's body! I think he's trying to stop me because he doesn't like Americans. I'll see him though....eventually

Wow, there's a lot of stuff to remember. We had to pack in as many sights as we could in two days so we were really busy. First, we paid a taxi driver to stay with us all day and take us to all the sights we needed to see. We went to the Terracotta Warriors first. There were so many of them! You walked up this street for about a half mile and you get to the top of a small hill, and all you can see is the security checkpoint at the top. As soon as you get through it, you can see the stadiums where the warriors are kept and the beautiful Asian landscaping they did around the entire park. First we went to the museum building, it was a small overview of the Terracotta Warriors; why they were made, when, how, ect.

The first Qin Emperor, who ruled from 259-210 BC built terracotta replicas (originally painted) of his army, to be buried with him when he died. There are over 8000 pieces of soldiers, 600 horses, over 100 chariots, and hundreds of thousands of weapons, in an area of about 20,000 square meters. All of the soldiers look different and have different facial expressions.

We walked around all 3 of the sites (3 sites have been found and some are still being excavated) and really got to understand how amazing it is that these were built so long ago. Not only having lasted this long, but that they didn't have anywhere near the technology that we have today.

Also that day we went to Mount Li, which has some amazing Buddhist temples on it. We took a gondola up the mountain, but first we saw the hot springs bathing temple at the base of the mountain. I can't remember the exact details but, the story was something like: a king in the Tang dynasty had a few sons. One of his sons got married. The king really liked his daughter in law, so he took her as his own wife...(apparently this wasn't uncommon in ancient China). Anyways, he couldn't technically call her his Empress, but this temple is where she would bath. It had many bath houses and there is actually a hot spring next to the mountain, inside the temple. After we walked around and saw all the bath houses, and went through a cave and got to touch the hot water, we took the gondola up the mountain, and explored some of the temples. We were pretty tired by the end of the day so we got dinner and went straight to sleep, so we could get up early for the next day.

Yesterday was our second day in Xi'an and we saw two ancient towers. First, the little wild goose pagoda. We got to climb all the way to the top. I've really like all the towers in China so far and it's especially fun when you get to climb to the top. In this one the stairway got tiny by the time you got near the top and you had to crouch under the ceiling. Then to get out there was a tiny square hole in the roof you had to climb through. A nice British couple held my camera for me while I hopped out. It's beautiful looking at the city from that high up. There was also a museum in the park that we went to for free. It's actually the city museum of Xi'an, and had some really cool information about the city, which has over 3100 years of history and has been the capital of numerous dynasties.

The second tower we saw was the big wild goose pagoda, which is a bigger version of the last tower. There was no museum here but the climb up the tower was just as fun as always. I'm glad we got to see these two towers before we left. The big wild goose pagoda is actually right on the axis of the biggest, busiest street in Xi'an.

After that we took a nice big comfortable bus to the airport where I ate way too much. But I ran out of energy bars and stuff so I can't eat my 6 small meals a day anymore. Now it has to be 3, so I have to push myself to eat more, otherwise I'll starve until we eat again.

Today we have a day off in Beijing because Jie has to register for classes for Appalachian State. I'll probably go to the gym and maybe walk around Beijing a little.

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Photos

Mixing Pot
at the end of the terracotta museum

Mount Li
there are the gondolas we took to the top

Me
Jie got some nice shots of me taking pictures of nude statues