Day 2 -- Xi'an

Xi'an is the original capital of China and is the founding place of Chinese history. It is also one of her best preserved cities and is located in north central China along the Yellow River, the life blood of the Chinese culture.  The name Xi'an (pronounced cee-ann) means western capital.  A perfectly square 10 mile long wall with a moat surrounds the old city.  This was also the starting point for the Silk Road, which also became a cultural road.  Marco Polo brought silk to the Western world via this route. 

Although Xi'an has a population of 8 million people, it is not one of the larger cities we visited.  Beijing has 16 million people but Shanghai has 18 million. They don’t fool around with small cities!  The old city of Xi'an is so important that the government is “encouraging” people to move out of the walled city to preserve the historic buildings.  Like Beijing and the surrounding areas, mega apartment building complexes are being built to resettle these people.  The government is upgrading the infrastructure by building high speed trains and expanding subways lines to move people from the apartment complexes into the city to work.  Hey, we are kicking you out, inconveniencing you, but you get to work just the same.  Forget about the convenience of your friends, neighborhood grocery and restaurants.  Go live in the sticks where there is nowhere to go and nothing around; at least we are giving you more living space to move around in. 

The day was an early call for a bus ride (oh I am getting sick of bus rides) to the Beijing airport.  Upon arrival at the airport, we were dropped off at the terminal with our luggage (remember light, carry on).  We assembled in a group and were given our boarding passes.  No line to stand in and those who wanted to check their bags just handed them over to an aide.  Is this service or what?  The guides arranged everything.  However, we did have to go through security; it was crowded but organized, no shouting or shoving.  We showed our documents, scanned our stuff, walked through the metal scanner, and then were wanded.  It was a two hour flight with meal service to Xi'an.

It was another long bus ride from the airport to see the Terra Cotta Warriors museum.  The day was grey, cold and drizzly and the windows in the bus were all fogged up and “raining” inside and we had to keep wiping them so we could see out, although there wasn’t much to see.  The countryside was bleak and flat.  There were small clusters of brick and tin roofed houses with what I would call a large garden rather than a farm.  These were very old looking and didn’t even look inhabitable, but there was laundry hanging out so you know someone lives there. 

People in this region don’t eat much rice.  What, no rice in Chinese food?  No, that’s not the case:  it is too cold and dry for rice to grow here, but they do grow winter wheat, which means noodles and dumplings and lots of dim sum (Michael was in food heaven eating here).  What do you think our first stop was in Xi'an?  A Chinese restaurant for MORE food.  Oy vey, did they feed us.  Nonstop platters of assorted dim sum plus soup plus appetizers!  There were 12 dim sum courses that I counted.  How can we function with all the food they are throwing at us?  I know the Chinese don’t eat like we have been eating because if they did, they would look like balls, short and round.

We finally got underway for the prime purpose of going to Xi'an – to see the world famous Terra Cotta Warriors, considered to be the 8^th wonder of the world.  When we arrived, it was snowing!! and cold.  We had to bundle up again as this is more or less an outdoor museum.  Being a tourist, especially in China, is hard work because everything is soooo big with lots of stairs and no place to sit and rest.  I am getting tired, I am getting sick and my foot hurts.  But I press on because I am there to view something so grand you cannot comprehend it unless you have seen it. 

So far over 8,000 life-sized warriors, horses and chariots have been uncovered.  Every face is different.  Emperor Qin (Chin) had this army made to go into his tomb so that in the afterlife, which is important in Chinese culture (they believe in reincarnation), he and his family would be protected.  He was kind enough not to kill real people for this purpose although he had no compunction about burying alive 300 students of Confucius, whom he hated.

This 2,000 year old discovery was made by accident when a farmer was digging for a well.  Three pits have been uncovered so far.  What they found were tunnels with a roof made of bamboo mats, covered over with earth about 15 feet underground.  The different classes of soldiers were lined up and battle ready with real weapons.  The detail in the sculptures was without a doubt intricate and incredibly detailed, right down to the treads on the bottom of the shoes and the fingernails.  Over the years, the roof collapsed and broke a majority of the clay pieces.  Grave robbers added insult to the damage by smashing the figures and setting them on fire after stealing the weapons.

Today, there is a continued ongoing massive restoration project in process.  It is a pain staking process and takes years to put the pieces of one figure back together.  Parts of the pit have been left undisturbed so you can see what it looked like in its original condition.  This is such a massive area and it would not be feasible to recreate the pit in a museum that they decided to build the museum over the pits.  This has to be one of the top five historical sites I have ever seen.

Whew, how do we top this one?

Our day was not complete unless we ate more Chinese food.  Dragging fanny, we had a brief 45 minute respite at another five star hotel before heading out to dinner and a show.  No more food… please.  The food was so so, but the entertainment was dazzling.  The Chinese National Song and Dance Troupe performed in a Las Vegas style showroom.  The costumes were elaborate and colorful, and the performance was professional and entertaining.