Xi'an

I back!!!! Whew! Spent the last 8 days or so (add two for travel) in China. The first 3 were spent in Xian. 

A bit of background? Well Xian was one of the ancient capitals of China. Seriously, it is REALLY old. As in early-human-remains-discovered-here old! Also, Xian is not a huge city… I they consider themselves to be pretty small, though I think they might be considered a 3^rd-tier city (or whatever they call them). So how big would you think that meant in the US? Well in China, it means 3.5 million people. Yeah. 

So those of you who know anything about Xian at all are probably wondering:  Did you see the Terracotta Army? Yes!

So Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, commissioned the building of is Terracotta army. The soldiers, larger than life-sized, are in 4 (known) pits around the Emperor’s Tomb which, by the way, has never been opened. In pit one, the largest, 2,000 of the 6,000 soldiers have been unearthed… they are still working on the rest. Pit 2 and 3 are also available for viewing, and neither of them is finished yet, either! Each soldier was made out of Terracotta clay and has amazing details…even the treads in their shoes and wrinkles in their clothing where added in. Each soldier’s face is different… in fact, many soldiers sat to have their face copied out, and all the soldiers were painted, though the paint has since disintegrated on most of the them.  

…but I am getting ahead of myself a bit. So my trip…. My family had scheduled a two day private tour in Xian and had an amazing guide- Lily and a driver. Unfortunately, it was raining for most of our trip to Xian. Anyway, our first sop the next day was the Terracotta Army. As you might have gathered from the above info, it was pretty interesting. Lily told us all the details. Unfortunately, there is simply no way I could possibly be able to type them all down here! Next stop…. Museum! Now since China has soooo much history, their museums are correspondingly huge and packed with historic tidbits. This time, however, Lily was there to guide us along. We spent about 2 hours there, and still skipped a lot of it! 

I enlarged this Terracotta Warrior, for two reasons. 1: Not all of his paint has worn off... see the color in there? and 2: so you can better see the amazing detail that each soldier has. Take a look at his hair and clothing as an example...and if you look close enough (I realize it is hard to see in the pic) you can see the individual treads on his shoes!

Next? Big Goose Pagoda. This is a big tower that houses monks…and apparently there is no real consensus as to the reason for its name. lol We went up to the top… a gruesome 7 flights (where 7= more like 14), but it was a pretty good view of the city. After, we saw a cultural show…a REAL one, mind you! Not like that one I saw in Indonesia! Haha It was okay. We had a dinner that was about 7 courses while they played traditional music on instruments that nobody (except the performers) play anymore, and also did some traditional dances and stuff. 

Day two!

The city wall! So China has this love of walls. They have this one… called the Great Wall… you might have heard of it, they like to brag about it a lot. lol Well Xian, what was the old city (now it is larger) has a city wall built around it. It was huge! There are 4 gates and in the center of the town, as with all the old cities, there is a huge bell tower, struck in the morning, and a huge drum tower, struck at night. We rode bikes around part of the wall… the entire thing is about 10k long or something… but the “best” part was when somebody stole my parent’s tandem bike! They got off to take a picture, turned back and it was gone! We didn’t get in trouble or anything, though, because only rented bikes are allowed on the wall, so it is not like somebody could sneak it away. 

The dumplings we learned how to make

We also did an in-home visit while there. We went into this lady’s house and sat with her and chatted, then she made dinner and showed us how to cook some of the food. She was an excellent cook! 

Lastly, we went to an old Mosque… but this was no Mosque like any I had ever seen before. In fact, the only thing that gave it away was the prayer room. Otherwise, it looked just like a Chinese garden!Look... this pic to the right is the entrance... no domes or anything like that here!

So that was Xian! 

Let’s see… a few interesting facts I learned about China?

1.)    The children seem to spend more time at school than the parents do at work! Ridiculous, in my opinion!

2.)    Chinese ladies like to leave the door open when they’re in the bathroom for some reason.

3.)    Lots of Chinese couples get married in restaurants… it is apparently the “in” thing! They also consult someone about the best days to get married which is based on their own birth dates as well as their relatives’ too.

4.)    Having both a girl and a boy is considered lucky. People liked our family :)

5.)    People who work for the government can be fired for having more than one child!

So that was Xian in a nutshell, though I assure you I could go on for quite a while about it if I had the time (or space). Enjoy all the pictures!