China: Xian

Installment 3/4 is about our day trip to Xian. We took an overnight train from Beijing to Xian, which took about 12 hours. We only ended up getting to spend about 8 hours in Xian total before taking the bullet train back to Beijing, which took about 5 hours. Xian was a really easy trip because we took a day-long tour, so we barely had to worry about anything. The tour was excellent and totally customized to wherever we wanted to go. We got to see all the big highlights of Xian in just one day.

Let's start from the beginning. We paid a little extra on the overnight train to get a coffee and a chocopie for breakfast. As soon as we got off the train, the outside of the station was packed with taxi drivers trying to get us to pay them to take us around. They actually wouldn't leave us alone. Thankfully, our tour guide saved us from that by waiting for us right there with my name on a piece of paper.

As soon as we got in the car, we headed just outside the city to the Terra Cotta Warriors. On the way, the tour guide explained a bit of history. If you read my post about Beijing and the Great Wall, you may have heard some of this already. First of all, Xian (pronounced Shi-an) is the ancient capital of China before it was moved to Beijing. People began living in Xian because it is located on a branch of the yellow river, so it facilitated trade. The old name of Xian is Changan, which means permanent peace. Xian was the capital of China for 13 of its dynasties, although not continuously.

Pit 1: 6,000 infantry men

The Qin Dynasty was the first dynasty of a united China. The first (and actually only) Qin Emperor was the one to unite the 7 Kingdoms with a feudal system 2,000 years ago. The first Qin Emperor connected sections of the Great Wall AND commissioned the building of the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian. There are a total of about 8,000 warriors spread between 3 pits and accurate to the Emperors warriors at the time. The first pit has about 6,000, primarily, infantry soldiers buried about 4 meters down. The other pits are deeper. Pit 2 has a range of different, higher ranking soldiers: cavalry, archers, generals, etc. Pit 3 is the smallest

Pit 1: different faces and armor of soldiers

and deepest of the pits. It contains mostly generals as well as some horses. The generals and different warriors all have different armor to indicate their rank. You can tell they are higher rank because they are slightly fatter and also have turned up shoes. All the warriors are carved with different faces and the hair is also quite detailed. Work on the Terra Cotta Warriors began when the Qin Emperor came to power at 13 years old. The building continued until his death at 37 years old. It took 700,000 people to build the warriors. After the first Qin Emperor died, the dynasty was overthrown by the Han. The Han Emperor went in search of the Qin Emperor's tomb in order to steal things from it and burn it down, but he didn't actually find it. He did find the first Terra Cotta Warriors pit, so some of the Warriors have been burned and many were destroyed. The Warriors were discovered by a farmer in 1974 when he tried to dig a well. The Tomb is located near the Warriors but it is its own separate place. We didn't visit it because it is not yet excavated. There's basically just a grassy hill to take a picture in front of. Archaeologists have found out that there is a mercury river running through the tomb, which is dangerous for the things inside as well as for those trying to enter. They are still making plans for how to excavate it.

Excavated, but as yet unreconstructed area

The pits are located in a little park that you can either walk through or take the tram to. The buildings that house the pits are not heated or anything, so it's a bit cold. We started off by seeing each pit before checking out the inside exhibit. It was really interesting to see all the different kinds of Warriors in display cases at Pit 2. Seeing them all in one place like that made everything a bit clearer and allowed us to get a closer look. It was also amazing to see what goes in to building one of these Warriors. Since parts of Pit 1 were burned soon after the Emperor's death and because the warriors are so old, there are parts of all the pits that have yet to be excavated and other parts where the warriors are exposed by not put back together yet. It is an ongoing archaeological site, and it is so impressive to see the work that has already been done. How they can manage to find the exact pieces and put these large figures back together in exactly the right way and in exactly the right formation is beyond me. I actually really enjoyed seeing the unfinished warriors and those that were in progress because it really puts in to perspective the

a general: fatter and turned up shoes

scope of the project. Pit 3 is the only pit that has been found to have sacrificial animals bones buried within it as well, so that pit might have been the site of funeral rites of some kind...I think. After taking a look at all the Pits, we went to the interior part of the museum. There, they have been able to preserve some of the Terra Cotta warriors with bits of their original paint. The paint on the Warriors should actually be very bright. The Warriors were entirely painted once but time and exposure to the air faded the paint. When the Warriors were first discovered, people didn't realize that the paint would fade, which is the reason why the Warriors in Pit 1 are all brown

an archer with some remaining red paint

 now. They would look completely different today if the paint had survived. There were models of what they would have looked like, and it is amazing how different they look with paint. It was nice to be able to see the Warriors that do have some bright paint left on them. The colors that were most bright were the reds and blues in the armor. Very beautiful. This is also a new part of the museum that just opened a few years ago, so we were lucky to be able to see it. Also in the museum are two model bronze chariots that were discovered with the Warriors. Only two have been recovered, but evidence suggests that there were actually 81 made. The chariots were really detailed and the horses were beautiful as well. The Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian are, truly, amazing to see if you're a history buff. It is worth the day trip there to see them, and the rest of Xian has a lot of interesting things to offer as well.

We were up early and hadn't eaten much, so our tour guide brought us to lunch at a delicious home made dumpling place that is actually a favorite of hers. We got massive plates of dumplings that were rolled and cooked as we ordered them. The restaurant itself wasn't that nice on the inside, and also not well heated, but the two ladies running it made some delicious food. I couldn't tell you the name of the place, but we were definitely satisfied with our meal.

jelly fish lanterns on top of the city wall

view of some very gray traditional buildings from the city wall.

The next place we visited on our day tour of Xian is one of the best preserved city walls in China. The wall around the old city of Xian was built by the first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty about 600 years ago. This ruler was actually a farmer who led an uprising and won, making himself Emperor. Apparently, this is not uncommon in Chinese history. What a rank change though! Obviously, it has been renovated since then, but it stands as a historical reminder. The entire wall has a moat around it with 4 gates: north, east, south, and west. Today, there are stairs leading up to the top of the wall where you can bike or walk. Gianni and I rented a tandem bike and went for about an hour-long ride on top of it. Honestly, a lot of what we saw was gray. The buildings and houses were very gray; the sky was gray either from air pollution or the fact that it was kind of rainy. There wasn't much vibrant color until we got to the part of the wall where they were building lanterns for the upcoming Chinese New Year at the end of February. We actually got to watch people put together the metal wiring for them and see some of the finished products. Different parts of the wall had different theme--eco-friendly, under the sea, flower garden, etc. They were so beautiful. This year will be the year of Gianni's animal sign, the ram. Even if we don't get to be in China for Chinese New Year, at least we got to see some of the setup for the celebrations. We made the decision not to go for 2 weeks at Chinese New Year because it's a huge deal in China, obviously. Things will be closed, and there will be 24 hour fireworks, and the cities clear out because people go home to their families. In China, it is called Spring Festival, and the celebrations last for about 2 weeks. We wanted to experience China as it usually is and get to see all the sites we are interested in seeing. Instead, we're going to spend Chinese New Year in China Town Tokyo. Anyway, we headed back down the wall after our short bike ride.

Muslim Market

It was getting later in the day, but we wanted to make sure we at least had a small dinner before going to the station and getting on the bullet train. The driver and tour guide took us past the drum and bell towers in Xian, which are basically at the center of the walled part of the city. The drum and bell towers are the old way in which citizens of Xian could tell the time. The drum inside the drum tower was struck at sunset and the bells in the bell tower were rung at dawn. The towers were built in about 1380 during the Ming Dynasty. We didn't go into either tower, but we did walk around near the drum tower at the Muslim Street Market. During the Tang Dynasty, China was open to outside traders. Xian was a big stop on the Silk Road. Many Arabic traders came and some settled permanently in Xian. The descendants of those traders make up the Muslim population in Xian today. First, we walked through a narrow, winding

Chinese Hamburger

souvenirs market. We already had most of the souvenirs we wanted, so we didn't end up buying anything. After that, we walked through the food area. We tried a really tasty rice-based cake made with lots of honey (I think). Then, we took our guide's suggestions about other foods. We sat down and had some fresh dandan noodles at a little restaurant. Dandan noodles are typically noodles and veggies in a spicy, peanut/sesame sauce, but I got mine made without the spice. I had never had dandan noodles again, but it could easily be my new favorite Chinese food. I hope I can get it at home. After that, our guide suggested we try

tasty honey, rice, and fruit cake I tried

what she called "a Chinese hamburger." It is cut up meat in between two crunchy pieces of flat bread. It was also really good. We had a nice time at the market, being adventurous and trying new things. Our guide took us to the train station to catch our bullet train and made sure we were all settled before leaving us there. It was a really great tour, and Xian is a really fun and interesting place. Don't miss it on your next trip to China!



The bullet train took about 5 hours to get to Beijing. The seats were pretty comfortable, and Gianni and I just passed out most of the time anyway. We were sitting in a row of just two seats, so no one else to bother us. And we got to sit at the very back of the car, so no one was behind us except a couple suitcases; we could recline fully without feeling guilty about squishing anyone. Only negative is we ended up on the foreign car. Most of the rest of the seats in the car were filled by an English family on a group tour, and they wouldn't shut up. Besides that little annoyance, it was a perfectly nice trip back to Beijing. We arrived there late at night, so we grabbed a taxi back to the apartment. Taxis (and also food) are super cheap in Korea, but even more so in China. We took a bunch of taxis and definitely didn't feel like we broke the bank because of it. Our Xian day trip was actually on our last full day in Beijing, so the day after, we were heading to the airport. I wrote about the last day in Beijing in the previous post, but basically we just ate dim sum with Jesse before heading to the airport.

We had a great time on our day tour in Xian. If anyone is thinking about taking a trip to Beijing, you absolutely have to go to Xian. You certainly don't need a tour to see the terra cotta warriors and other things there, but it certainly made things much easier for us. We don't know who would have scammed us otherwise, and we got to see a lot in the short amount of time that we had. The tour company we went with was Terra Cotta Warriors Tour: www.terracottawarriorstour.com. They were very good. Our tour guide was quite informed and helpful in making food suggestions as well, and the driver got us around safely and on time. The cost of taking the train there and taking a tour was well worth it. Our Xian day trip was a highlight of tour time in China.