Monday, September 12, 2005Terra Cotta Warriors and more in Xi'an
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The Terra Cotta Warriors is located in Xi'an, China (pronounced she-ann) and is about a one hour flight west of Beijing. It is known as the greatest archeological find of the 20th century and has the title of "The 8th Wonder of the World!" Terra Cotta WarriorsThe part of the story that amazed me, is that if the farmer digging the well had dug about 3' in the opposite direction, he would have never stumbled upon the warriors. His well was basically at the corner of where the warriors were buried. Not smack in the middle of the 7000 terra cotta horses and armoured soldiers, but on the very edge of it. Only, a few hundred warriors have been restored along with some of the horse and bronze carts. But most are still buried or are still being excavated. At any given point you can see an arm, or face or butt of a horse sticking out of the dirt. ![]() Our guide was pretty useless. Luckily we only paid her $12USD, but she didn't tell us anything we couldn't learn from the signs. In fact, she tried to hurry us through everything. We're in the pit with the warriors and she wanted us to leave out a back exit. We bought a soldier that stands about 1.5' tall. We named him Carlos. He doesn't really look like a Carlos, but none of them really do. The museums and pits are in a gated area. As we approached the gate, there is a visible track the gates are closed upon. On the other side of that track are these people with little terra cotta warriors in their hands yelling at you, wanting you to buy stuff from them. They physically were not allowed to cross that line, but they were all over us as soon as we crossed it. ![]() There were also several locals selling pomegranites. This must have been the season and the town must have been surrounded by pomegranite orchards because there were people everywhere selling them. All along the highway, spaced every 30' or so. We at first thought they were gigantic apples until we got closer. Muslum QuarterThe first evening there, we went to dinner in the Muslum Quarter. This is an area of town where a lot of Muslums live. I expected the residents here to be dressed significantly different from the other Chinese. But it was just another crazy Chinese neighborhood. The only difference from the other Chinese neighborhoods is that they served really good and spicy food here. Every restaurant had guys out front with dozens of skewers in their hand roasting lamb, chicken or beef on glowing red charcoals. There were also some resturants where they would hand make and pull noodles with these grills that spit flame through vents like furnaces. I personally have never eaten from street vendors, but I went to town here. Ancient City WallCollege Boys in Muslim DistrictThat night, we went back to the Muslum district. This time instead of walking we took a Tuk Tuk. Our driver ended up taking us through all these back streets that we would have never come across on our own. We really saw how the local Chinese people live. Because he was driving down such crowded streets, he was constantly laying on his horn. I thought at any minute Troy was going to lean over and pull the wire that connects the horn. I found out one of the guys (Alec) was a soldier and joined the military when he was 15. He told me after middle school everyone has to take a test. If you do really well you have a choice (really?) to go to what is considered West Point. He is a soldier for life!!!!!! I was trying to get an idea if he would have to fight when he was 40 so I was trying to ask him if China went to war in 20 years would he have to fight. I don't know if he thought I meant China in war against America because he responded "I don't think this is very good topic of conversation for dinner!" Whoops! 2 Comments:
Wow, what a site. That must have been awesome! I have heard of this place on discovery channel. But I wonder how the government thinks they can promote people coming forward with their finds if their land is just taken with no reimbursement. “Let’s see, find of the century which will leave me no land or don’t tell anyone and keep my farm.” ...leave it to Shelly to innocently strike up a war between two nations without either government knowing... Just Joking! I'd love to go there someday (soon!). What a find!! |