Day 8
It’s hard to know where to begin today! So many contrasting emotions!
We left our hotel early, expecting to go to the Win Shi Huang Terracotta Warriors site, but we found ourselves stopping at the Terracotta Warriors Reproduction Factory first (read ‘shop’).
We were taken through the process of how the reproductions are made. To be honest it was a bit creepy seeing bits of warriors littering the floor.
You could buy a reproduction in various colours in any size you liked.
You could even get a warrior made with your own face depicted on it!
The factory also made lacquered furniture. Absolutely stunning but not my cup of tea.
After parting with 100 yuan for a 10cm kneeling warrior (we’ve hidden it in our garden), we thought it best to actually move on and see the real thing!
Unearthed near Xian in 1974, the site comprises 8000 life sized sculptures of soldiers, chariots and horses covering 20,000 sqm, housed in 3 covered pits. With different facial expressions and weaponry adorning each soldier, the Terracotta Warriors were believed to have been created to accompany the Qin Emperor into the afterlife.
But wait! First we had to visit a pavillion where one of the farmers who first discovered the warriors, sat signing books. No pictures allowed unless you bought a book, so no pics! Interesting to note that the government gave each of these farmers 20 yuan for their discovery, about $5.00 in today’s currency. Generous!
Pit No1 is the largest and best preserved. The crowd was enormous and it took some effort to get to the front of the main viewing area. But when we did, the scene was truly amazing.
Lots of the pieces were broken and being painstakingly restored.
Pit No2 had much less uncovered.
And Pit No3 looked like not much work had been done at all.
John chose to look through the pavillion with the golden chariots, but I couldn’t face the crowds. I waited outside and ‘chatted’ with a grandma, mum and baby who were doing the same thing. Bonny babe was 6 months old! So cute!
John told me I’d made the right decision as they saw nothing of the chariots at all.
We made our way out of the complex to enjoy a late lunch which was massive.
Downstairs, we were shown how a traditional tea ceremony was performed, tasting a range of tasty and not so tasty teas. My favourite was the Lychee tea, fruity and sweet.
Our day was far from over!
Xian is a walled city, and we were eager to walk along it. Our guide said it was closed for the day and dropped us all off at the hotel. Undeterred, John and I walked the 15 minutes or so to the nearest part of the wall from our hotel, and found we had about an hour left to explore. The wall was originally built in 582AD, and is the largest and most ancient in China.
Lots of locals were enjoying the fading sunshine of the day, riding or strolling along what was a very wide wall!
Among the crowds, we came across this little princess reciting a poem for her mother!
We walked a couple of kms along the wall before descending the inner wall and passing through a gate to the outside. Beautiful gardens and paths took us all the way back to our original starting point. Locals were playing sports, with others just wandering along like us, enjoying the coolness of the shady pathways.
As the light faded, we walked back to another focal point of Xian, the Bell Tower. We found a strategic perch and started people watching, waiting for the ‘illuminations’ to be turned on.
A family next to us were very curious about the European looking people beside them and the two little kids started giggling and taking sneaky photos of us on their mobile phone. I gestured to them to come and get a selfie and the little girl jumped at the chance.
Amazing that, despite the thousands of people watching the light show, there were only a handful of people in the crowd who weren’t Asian. It has actually been the same everywhere we’ve been, come to think of it! Maybe most tourists visit China in cooler weather!
By 8pm, it was finally dark enough for the lights to be turned on.
Simply stunning!
Kanga And Wombats Adventures 