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Published: September 16th 2006
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8/22 - 8/24
So Jaime and I decided to follow my Mom's tour to Xian, except we preferred to find our own hotel in the inner city historic district. Xian itself is quite a large hustle and bustle city. There are more than 6 million residents, and our first night there we were pleasantly surprised to find rows and rows of well lit hotels and restaurants, and the streets loaded with pedestrian shoppers. We settled in to our more modest accommodations, and made plans to join my mother's tour the next day to see the Terra-Cotta-Warriors, and a few local historic sites.
The Terra-Cotta-Warriors was easily the most impressive man-made sight we have yet to see in our travels. Over 6,000 statues have been discovered during the past 30 years. Apparently an emperor with an ego wanted to feel protected in the afterlife, so had a full fledged ceramic army built, complete with archers, cavalry, and infantry, all holding working weapons. The army was placed in 4 underground tombs, each hundreds of meters apart. Placed in the ground more than 2000 years ago, it was not long after that the earth above the statues collapsed, keeping the artwork of this
BC era fantastically preserved until a farmer discovered some ceramic pieces, digging a well in the 1970s. Each statue is uniquely carved, with differing facial features, poses and armour. There are still in the process of uncovering the warriors, but it was quite amazing to see several thousand all lined up, ready for battle.
In the afternoon we toured a couple of historic sights, including the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. There was a neighboring monastery, and some fantastic Buddhist relics on display. Definitely glad we were able to check out the sight, and stroll around the accompanying park.
In the evening, the tour brought us to the Tang Dynasty Opera house, where we had an absolutely scrumptious meal followed by a Song and Dance performance. The meal was an all Dumpling event, where our tour was overwhelmed with 18 different types of dumplings, with some of the dumplings coming in cool shapes (fish dumplings shaped like fish, Chinese can be so creative). The food was awesome, and the performance was top caliber, I think all the tourists enjoyed (I believe the event was a bit pricey for the locals).
My moms tour left the following day for
Big Wild Goose Pagoda
with a name like that, how could we not put it in the blog a boat trip along the Yangtze river, and it was time for us to say goodbye to the tour and my mom. The group was a lot of fun, but the tour moved a pace of about a city every 1-2days, and Jaime and I wanted to take things a bit more slowly.
We walked around Xian the next day, planning the remainder of our time in China, and also taking in a few more historic sights. I began to wonder if the somewhat suspect "Hair Salons" were in fact small Brothels, with one or two done up girls sitting up front, a single mirror and salon chair inside, and then a sheet preventing view to the back. These "salons" lined the streets of Xian, and it seemed preposterous that there could be so much rampant prostitution's. My suspicions were confirmed the first time I took a walk to the ATM without Jaime, when my Caucasian face and lack of companion made me some kind of celebrity with all kinds of "Hey Honey" and "Massagie. Massagie." coming from all over the place. Kind of made sense my moms tour didn't stop here.
On our last night in Xian,
we had what had proved to be our worst moment traveling yet. We took a stroll to the Muslim district, to see some of China's native Muslim populations, and have some of the well known good food available in the area. We really enjoyed the beginning of our evening there. Less than 2 minutes after leaving the restaurant, a pickpocket lifted our camera right out of my not so secure pant pocket (which I must give credit to Jaime/she reminded me to mention: that she felt the pocket was not a good place for it to be kept). It was a devastating blow, losing pictures since the end of Thailand, and all of our pictures of Beijing and the Terracotta warriors. After feeling sorry for ourselves for a short while (we soon regained focus and realized we have little to feel sorry about) we moved on, bought a new camera, and got ready to leave for Chengdu the next day. Luckily my mom was able to have a very kind couple from St. Louis give us a CD of their photos, so at least we were able to retain some physical evidence of our experiences in China.
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