Xi'an again, oh crap I'm running out of titles
Yet another completely surreal day. I wanted to go for a tour of the terracotta warriors today, so I talked to the front desk who can only organize it if more than one person goes, so I posted a note asking for people to join me. Two people were sort of interested but thought it was too expensive and suggested that we go without a tour, which we did via public busses. One lady is from Italy (Silvia) and a guy from Singapore (Kaw pronounced like "Tie" with a "k"). We left at about quarter to 9 and arrived at the hot springs shortly after, wandered around (in the rain, no less) until about 11:30. The hot springs are really net because they are a palace getaway for many of the later dynasties in the winter time, up in the mountains. It was beautiful, and they had a little museum going with it, with girls standing in costume on the third floor, posing as the concubines and servants would. The girl playing the concubine figure (a very famous, exquisitely beautiful concubine - there's a big statue devoted to her) was stunning. I got a picture of her, but wondered how comfortable she must be sitting there on the stone "bathtub" type backdrop they had set up. The rest of the compound was beautiful despite the rain, and we got to see the ruins of the old pools, as well as have the chance to pay for a touch of the water(which we didn't). Acutally we stumbled upon a small tea-house that had a hot spring fountain outside of it, so we put our hands in that instead (for free - yay for being cheap!! Let me just gloat that I got half price everywhere except the terracotta warriors, which was 90 kuai, so expensive, but so worth it!!). It didn't smell like sulphur, and I don't think they treated the water, so I kind of wonder how they did it. Well, I was exhausted and hungry, but we pressed on. The next stop of the bus was the Mosaleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (the first emperor). It's basically this well tended hill that has been turned into a tourist place. There are 283 steps leading up to the top of the mound to singify the donation by the government of Singapore to the preservation of this site, and also has one of the first carvings in the standardized Chinese language created by Emperor Qin. It's really neat because the emperor is still somewhere down in that hill because they don't really have the technology to excavate it without it potentially collapsing and they don't know if the soil will release any metals or other elements that would possibly affect the surrounding ecosystem. They are still excavating around the mound, and the thing is freaking huge! And for this huge space, it's less than half, maybe a quarter of the entire burial ground which included residences, the terracotta army, it was like a city for some dead dude. Wierd!!!Lastly (and I was exhausted by now!) was the Terracotta Warrior museum. It was by far the hightlight of my day. We started at the museum part - with jade pieces and such. It was nice and I liked looking at everything, but it was when we hit the second pit that it really hit me. there are 3 pits that were excavated in the surrounding area and they've built the museum up surrounding these sites so that tourists can walk around and see it. We went pit #2, #3 then #1 (the coolest!). The second pit didn't have too much, mostly it was still being excavated, and was there as a tool to show people how much work there was left to do. They had uncovered most of the roof covering the warriors (it was purposely all sealed up by the makers of the tomb, which is kind of wierd - these warriors were all buried and purposely hidden). The third pit was almost completely destroyed from weathering and such. Actually in the second pit, there were indents where people had placed other tombs ontop of this one (not knowing what was underneath it). It's funny that only in 1974 did they even know that these things existed. Bill Clinton called it the "Eighth wonder of the world" and they use that phrase constantly. It is pretty incredible though. The big pit, and the first to be discovered (also the most well preserved) is the first one, with row up on row (eleven in total) of standing terracotta warriors. Each one is different in facial features, dress, hair, shape, size, you name it, they're unique! They've found about 2000 but estimate that there are about 6000 total (that haven't yet been unearthed or have been destroyed). The pictures are incredible, if I do say so so myself!
After a ridiculously long day (and a fantastic one at that), I headed home and had dinner at one of the Moselm restaurants. Spicy beef, mutton, soup, bread, beer, for about 13 bucks for 3 people. It was great!! We (Sylvia and Kew were still with me!) then wandered and tasted all there was to taste, and see all there was to see on this street. it was great.
PS I did run into a couple of people who came to Xi'an with me, who ended up just at the terracotta warriors (where I ran into them) and while it was the highlight, I'm so glad that I did it all. They paid so much for an organized tour, and I got entry and food for less than 30 bucks (for the whole day), and that includes a little trinket for my dad (mom, I already got you something, and Jaclyn won't tell me what she'd like, so I'm at a loss!!) Well, my fingers are now exhausted and it's time for a beer.
Holy cow, I feel so lucky. I still can't believe that I'm out here. I've had so many strange experiences, most of which I can't even write about because It would take up about 6 blogs (this is just one day and I've been writing for almsot an hour!!) But Ill write again soon, don't you worry.
PS, sorry about all the spelling, the keyboard sticks and I'm kinda on a roll (also the spell check function usually erases my post, so I've given up on that)
Jenn
posted by Jenn @ 10:09 a.m.
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