Excursion Fun!

We’ve been out enjoying the fairly cool weather the past two days. This is a relative term, of course. By cool I mean upper 80s with low humidity. I’ll be freezing when I get home! Anyway, yesterday we went to the northeast of town to Huaqing Hot Springs. These were former imperials baths that served as a retreat for the imperial court. I can tell why they would choose this spot. There’s a beautiful mountain and the scenery is so tranquil. That being said, it wasn’t the most exciting visit in the world. Our Chinese guide was a little hard to understand and really didn’t go into any depth. We were basically led from one hole to another, “this is where water would have been.” The one interesting tidbit that I learned was that the imperial staff also bathed there. The cooks could not touch their feet since they prepared the emperor’s food, so they had to develop a series of holes in the bottom of the

bath in which pumice stone was placed for them to scrub their feet. Two thoughts came to mind: 1) it’s always a good rule of thumb not to touch your feet and then cook, even if you’re not serving the emperor, and 2) what I wouldn’t give for that type of foot bath right then and there! The visit wasn’t a total wash (get it, bath, wash…work with me people) as this served also Chiang Kai-Shek’s headquarters. So we got to see Chiang’s office, bedroom, bathroom, etc. The bullet holes where the communists fired at him are even preserved.

Today my roommate, George had an interesting cultural experience. He got to visit a Chinese doctor. Like many of us, he developed a nagging cough. I had the same thing last week, losing my voice. Most of us brought antibiotics with us. I took mine and felt a difference within hours. George unfortunately didn’t have any, so he got worse. The “internalist” (a doctor who deals with what goes on inside) wasn’t in the office, so the “externalist” had to see him. Basically he was told, “well, this isn’t my area of expertise, but I think you have a sinus infection. Here’s an antibiotic.” The cost of the doctor’s visit and the medicine was 5.8 Yuan.

Today’s excursion made us feel like typical tourists, and it was great! We visited the Bell Tower, which is the heart of the city. Traditionally, all Chinese cities had a drum tower to wake the citizens up in the morning and a bell tower to tell people when curfew was going into effect in the evening. So we walked up into the bell tower and watched the traffic swirling around the base. The traffic here is just mind-boggling. After a half hour there, we went to the city wall. While the city has been walled since ancient times, this wall dates from the Ming Dynasty, being built in the 1300s and had a major restoration in the late 1700s. It’s the only city wall in the world where you can ride a bike all the way around it. And that’s what we did! It was a great way to see the city. It was hot, but not unbearable. Of course, the strategically placed ice cream stands helped with that. I made it about 1/3 of the way around the 14 kilometer wall, but turned around. I know, I know. I should have toughed it out, but these bikes were not made for anyone over 5 foot 6! My legs were getting worn out. I still had an amazing time though and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Time Moves Quickly

Wow, it’s hard to believe that in less than two weeks I’ll be home and suffering from jetlag. The end of this past week was jam packed. Today I was planning on just doing nothing, but 6 ½ hours walking around town isn’t exactly doing nothing.

I actually slept in until about 7 am this morning. Oh it was so nice! It’s a good thing I woke up then, because shortly thereafter a whole series of firecrackers were set off across the lane at the apartment building for staff of the university. Firecrackers are set off here for any occasion for well wishes: weddings (which was the reason for today’s round), moving in to a new apartment/home,

birthdays, a cool day, a good dish of pork…(okay, I made those last two up). The point is, they set them off continually and never at opportune times, i.e. they shoot them off between 7 am to 8 am. At 10 I met up with Rene and Katrina and Rene’s Chinese student, Sharon, to go into town. We had two main goals: find silk and pick up our tailor made clothing. Even though this is the end/beginning of the famous Silk Road, silk is hard to find here. Silk isn’t particularly made here, nor is “Silk Road” a particularly historically accurate term. That term wasn’t used to describe the trade between China until the early 1900s when a German archaeologist by the name of Richtofen (the Red Baron’s uncle) used the term. Silk was just one of many items going from China towards the West. Anyway, Rene had found a blog entry online about this ONE shop that sells quality silks in Xi’an. So off we went. It was in a huge hangar-like building with stall after stall of fabrics. Sharon just asked people where the silk store was and they pointed us in the right direction. It’s hard to believe that there’s only one in the entire place. I couldn’t believe the great selection that they had. I got two different silks, Katrina got three and Rene got eight! The asking price was 65 Yuan per meter, but we were able to get it for 50 Yuan ($7.35 per meter). That’s an amazing deal for silk.

By the time we were done silk shopping it was already almost one o’clock, so we had lunch of spicy pork noodles and plum juice. Total cost: 7 Yuan per person. The noodles were the right thing to hit the spot. Then it

was off in the rain to the Muslim quarter to find our tailor and pick up our clothing. Walking through the narrow streets of the Muslim quarter was a challenge with vendors lined on both sides of the street and in the middle plus throngs of people carrying umbrellas AND bikes, carts, motorcycles, cars, etc. also competing for space. In China, the bigger the vehicle, the more right of way you have. The pedestrian is last in that pecking order, even in a supposed pedestrian area. It’s crazy, but you learn very quickly to constantly listen for horns. We made it to the tailor and got our clothing. It turned out so great. It’s amazing that such quality clothing could be made so quickly and so cheaply! After they

packaged up our clothing nice and neatly, we continued our wandering to find more gifts for people back home. I bought a lot of stuff today, but will refrain from mentioning any of it because some of you may be getting the stuff.

Finally we made it home by about five o’clock this afternoon. I am not going anywhere the rest of the evening. I’m just relaxing with a cold beer, chatting with my roommate George from Okemos and blogging for you.

Tang: Not Just the Orange Juice of Astronauts

Saturday was one of our marathon Saturdays with a ton of activities. It was actually a great day full of nice weather, tombs, and the cheesiest dinner theatre you could imagine.

With our ambitious agenda, we had to rise early to make a 7 am breakfast. During the week, our breakfast is at 7.30 and at 8.30 on the weekends. We had to be to our classroom by 8 to hear our new lead historian, Dr. Zhou Xiuqin (pronounced like Joe Shoe-Chin, with Xiuqin being her first name) talk to us about the beginnings of the Tang Dynasty. (By the way, Tang rhymes with gong, just so we have that clear.) We learned of the scandal and intrigue of the beginnings of the most prosperous dynasty in Chinese history. At 9.20 we were done and hustled back to our rooms to pack up for the day and to get ready to leave at 10. I filled my back pack with water, snack crackers, lemon wafers, Kleenex, hand sanitizer (thanks Mom!), postcards, etc. I made one last stop at the convenience store across the lane to buy some ice cream (30 cents), and then got on the bus.

We spent about an hour and a half on the expressways heading west of Xi’an. By the way, the highways here are far better than anything that Michigan has. China has been pumping tons of money into its infrastructure to cope with an expanding economy. Then the last half hour was spent on winding roads going up into the mountains. They looked like the types of roads where you’d see the “chicken bus,” you know the one full of locals, their chickens, possibly goats and has a top full of luggage, baskets and things. Unfortunately, we did not see the chicken bus.

Our first stop was the tomb of the first Tang emperor, Gaozu. This was kind of the gold standard and the mold that all Tang mausoleums would follow afterwards. Instead of building burial mounds as in the past, the Tang used actual mountains. While the tallest mount of the Qin emperors was 60 meters, Gaozu’s was over 1000 meters! Of course, geology gave him a head start. There really is nothing original at Gaozu’s mausoleum, but the Chinese are rebuilding it to give people an idea of what it would have looked like had it been untouched. We had 45 minutes there to soak it in the ambience. Some raced to the top of the mountain; I chose to remain a little lower and enjoy the cool breezes sweeping over the mountain.

Next we drove to the tomb/mausoleum (or ling in Chinese) of the third Tang emperor, Gaozong and his wife, the Empress Wu. The Empress was the only woman to ever rule China in her own right. There have been several who acted as regent for their young sons upon the death of their husbands, but Empress Wu ruled for a good chunk of her husband’s reign and then continued to rule in her own right after his death. Their tomb is interesting in the fact that the Spirit Road leading to the tomb still has the original sculpture lining it. Plus, most historians think that the tombs themselves have been untouched. As with many imperial tombs, though, the Chinese are not opening them because they simply don’t have enough trained people to process what would be found and to safely manage the treasures. So we walked the Spirit Road and part way up the mountain before we turned back. Annette then led us through a small farming village that is directly below the Spirit Road, built into the Loess soil. Most of the farmers have moved on since Annette has last visited the village about 20 years ago. We heard two conflicting reports. One was that the farmers moved away to get better housing. The other report was that the government moved them. Either way, it was still interesting to peer into their world.

Next we were off to the tomb of one of the Tang princesses whom the emperor had executed at the age of 17. (I teach teenage girls; I can see where he was coming from…) This tomb had been totally excavated and we were able to descend to the dark depths below the mountain. It was very cool looking at the paintings and burial figurines lining the way. (All were reproductions though, as the originals were removed to museums for safe keeping.) At the bottom was her large stone coffin. I’m not sure if it was original or reproduction, though.

Then we hopped back into the bus to head back to town for a 7 pm dinner reservation at the Tang Dinner Theatre back in Xi’an. The ride was nice. I was able to write postcards, listen to music, nap a bit and enjoy the scenes of the countryside. We arrived to the theatre at 7 pm on the dot. Now, let me preface this by saying I had no desire to go to this thing from the get-go. One of the members had proposed going to this show and dinner at the very beginning as he had found info on it at the tourist bureau. The cost was 800 Yuan! First of all, that’s way too much money; secondly, I hate tourist shows, because they are aimed at tourists so there’s nothing really authentic about them; thirdly, the food is typically bland, tasteless versions of the real thing to appeal to the tourist palate. Well, last week, at a curriculum meeting I missed because I wasn’t feeling well, our leader, Kevin, said that if we all agreed to go, that the China Institute would pick up the tab as it was a cultural excursion. So a vote was taken and it was agreed we’d all go. I’m sure they got a much better deal than the 800 Yuan price. Well, I was right on all counts. I think the only Chinese there were the servers; everyone else was Western, mostly German. The food was bland. I had to dunk everything into plum sauce to give it some flavour. The show, well, I was told that there was no cheese in China, but I saw plenty of it last night. I think the highlight was during the military dance when the big monster’s eyes started flashing red. I thought I was in the red light district all of a sudden. (Plus, the monster was smiling. Monsters don’t smile.) Even though we were treating it as a comedy show and were laughing accordingly, we couldn’t wait to get out of there. We didn’t make it home until nearly 10.30, so that was a 15 ½ hour day. Yeah, it was long. Would I change anything about it? Nah…

Things I Miss/Things I Appreciate

Things I Miss…
Being able to read packaging
Low humidity
Cheese
Cold beverages
Ice
Salad
Curling up with a cat
Hot breakfast
St. Laurent’s peanut butter
Pizza
Driving
Clean air

Things I Appreciate…
Cheap public transport
Convenient public transport
Real Chinese food
Sesame snacks
Museums
Bend-over backwards helpful people
Clerks and servers who are patient and kind as I practice my Chinese
My colleagues
Plum juice
Local handcrafts

The Kindness of Strangers

The last couple days have gone by so quickly. I have the feeling that before I know it, we’ll be boarding the plane to head back to the U.S. I am so not ready to go yet; there’s so much more I want to see, do and learn before leaving. Of course, I may feel differently in a couple weeks, so check back then.

Tuesday was, surprise, hot! With the combination heat, busy schedule, etc, I was not feeling the greatest during the morning lecture from Annette, our lead historian from Rutgers. There was nothing wrong stomach-wise, which I wish were true for many of my colleagues. I just didn’t feel right. In fact, Annette’s lecture was on Buddhism in China, a subject that I am really interested in, and I couldn’t focus nor keep my eyes open. So at the lunch break, I went back to the room and slept for three hours, skipping the afternoon curriculum session. When I woke up, I felt much better. The heat and the rigourous schedule have gotten to many of us, so our group coordinator, Kevin, has been pretty understanding if we need to duck out for a bit.

In the evening, Rene, Katrina and I took a taxi to Annette’s hotel, about a 10 minute ride from here, and it cost us 7 Yuan. Annette was a little late meeting us, because she had spent the day at the Beilin Museum in their basement going through objects. She was as giddy as a school girl. She showed us around the gardens at her hotel and then we all walked to a local Japanese restaurant and had an amazing meal. It was a bit pricier than what we’re used to paying, about 65 Yuan a piece, but well worth it! It was so much fun just relaxing and chatting with Annette and hearing her take on the program. She spoke frankly with us about things she wishes were better, but at the same time spoke about the strengths. After dinner, we walked her back to her hotel and then we took a taxi back home.

This morning (Wednesday) I was shocked when I walked outside to head to class. Not only was it not slap-you-in-the-face hot, it was cool! There was a breeze!! I made it all the way to class without breaking a sweat. I could tell it was going to be a good day. On the way to class, I met up with John and we decided to treat ourselves to some real coffee and an American style coffee shop on Shi Da Lu (the name of the street heading out of the campus). Some members of our group go there every morning. It was a nice treat, but at 19 Yuan, it was much more expensive than the 2.80 Yuan melon or mango juice that I get at the grocery store every morning.

Chinese class went well. We practiced our numbers and the hand gestures that go with each number. This has been especially helpful in bargaining in the local markets. Our vocab still basic, but we’re learning useful stuff. I think that once I get home, I will certainly keep up with learning Chinese. It will be especially nice having a new Chinese teacher at Central this coming year. For Annette’s lecture today, we continued our talk on Buddhism and examined Buddhist art. Today I was able to focus. Lunch was a couple of bao ze, pieces of steamed bread filled with pork and green onions. As we often say to one another, it’s all about the pig here in China. (It’s kind of like Bavaria in that sense.) After lunch, our excursion was to the Beilin Museum with Annette leading as our tour guide. We visited Buddhist sculpture and the stele. Steles are large black stones in which Chinese scholars used to inscribe their books, sketches, portraits, etc. They were basically libraries on stones. It’s not as inconvenient as you’d think. The idea was that anyone could put paper on the stones, make rubbings and bring the book home. We saw that process today and I actually got a scroll of a scene of Taishan, an important mountain in the region.

Instead of taking the motor coach back to the campus, Rene, Katrina and I decided to stay in the old city to do some shopping, since it was such a nice day. For myself, I bought a name chop, which is a stone with your name carved in it. It’s what the Chinese use to sign their names to documents. If you ever see a painting by a Chinese artist, you’ll see the red stamp of the artist’s name. Rene already had one made, so she helped Katrina and I pick out stones. I chose one for the year of the rat, which is my sign. (Funny thing is, here they refer to it as year of the mouse.) We both then got our Chinese names inscribed on the stones. I also bought a variety of gifts for people back home. (You’ll have to figure out who you are and what you got!)

It was dinner time, and we thought we’d try finding this restaurant called Little Sheep, which is a hot pot restaurant similar to the one I had been to last week. We thought there was one downtown, but we couldn’t find it. So we decided to ask people. Rene and Katrina were asking people and no one seemed to know where it was. As I was walking around trying to see if I could spot it, I heard a polite voice, “Excuse me, excuse me.” I turned around and there was a young woman there and a young man with her. She continued, “I am a high school student here and would like to practice my English. May I talk to you?” Of course, I told her. So we struck up a conversation and the young man took part as well. Her English was quite good for just three years in high school. He apologized for his English, but it was still good enough to get his ideas across. The five of us chit chatted a bit and we asked if they knew where the Little Sheep restaurant was. They didn’t know, but the young man started calling people on his cell phone until he found out. He told us that there wasn’t one close by, that the nearest one was quite a distance away. We were disappointed, but said we’d just head back to where we were staying to find something near there. “Oh, where are you staying?” “Shaanxi Shi Da,” we replied. The girl got very excited. “My high school is attached to the Shi Da! The Little Sheep restaurant is close to that. We will take you there!” So they lead us to the bus stop, we rode the bus together for about a half hour while talking. The young man had to leave us when we got off the bus as he had a class to go to, but the young woman walked us to the restaurant, brought us inside, got a private room for us, went through the menu, which had no English, helped us order, and was just genuinely going out of her way to be helpful. We asked her to join us for dinner, but she said that she needed to get home because her mother would be worried about her. She just wanted to be sure that we had what we needed. So she left and we had our hot pot for dinner. I think that this can be a lesson to anyone who travels abroad. Yes, you need to be careful, but there are so many wonderful, generous, kind people out there who want to help visitors to their regions. So many Americans travel with the mentality that every person is out to get them or that everyone hates Americans. I can tell you from experience, it’s just not so.

Drunk and Improper Clothes Not Allowed to Visit

Thus reads the sign at the entrance to the Yangling or Hanyangling Mausoleum to the north of Xi’an. One of the joys of this trip has been reading all of the fractured English. It’s always good for a laugh.

Monday was a pretty fun day overall. Breakfast was a bit noisier than normal as there was a large group of Chinese who were eating with us. (Thus far it has just been our group at breakfast.) Nice thing was that they had mini pancakes for us, and they weren’t half bad! No hidden surprises inside.

In Chinese class, I finally got my Chinese name. I am now Wú Qiáng. Language class is going well and every day we keep adding words to our slowly increasing vocab and we’re getting braver out in the “real world.” After Chinese we had a lecture on the Han Dynasty which was interesting and informative as always.

For lunch, my friend John and I went to the Mongolian restaurant that I’ve been to a couple times. He went on Sunday and wrote down a couple dishes that he had had and liked. When we sat down we were given the menu, which unfortunately is completely useless for us, as there are no pictures, English or pinyin (which is Chinese transcribed in Latin letters.) So John pulled out his notebook and showed her the two dishes that he had and the waitress wrote them down. Then we got brave. “Do you want some dumplings,” asked John. “Sure, why not.” So we asked for “jiao ze”. The waitress said something that we assumed was “what kind,” so we responded with “zhuro,” or pork. She rattled off a few things and we both sat there trying to figure out what she could be asking. We said pork again, and she repeated her spiel again. Finally a Chinese man at the next table turned to us and asked if we would like his help. “Yes,” we happily responded. So he asked the waitress what she had asked us. She had wanted to know what we wanted with the pork dumplings: shrimp, cabbage, etc. So we went with cabbage. We also ordered beer and rice, in Chinese. So we had the two dishes that John had the previous day: a dish of stewed tomatoes and beef and a dish of silken tofu and hard boiled eggs soaked in soy sauce with vegetables in a delicious savoury sauce. We were quite full, then came the dumplings that we had forgotten all about. Two big plates of them. Ugh! We each managed to eat just a few before giving up. Besides, we had to be back for our afternoon excursion. We felt bad wasting so much food, but dumplings really don’t keep well. Our meal came to a total of $8.50.

In the afternoon, we drove an hour to the north of Xi’an to visit the Yangling Mausoleum, which dates from the Han Dynasty. This was similar to the style of burial of the Terracotta warriors, but those are associated with the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. I was blown away by Yangling. Again, there were effigies of thousands of soldiers, civil servants, servants, dancers, etc., but these were done on a 1/3 scale. They were also anatomically correct. You may ask yourself, why are they naked? They weren’t. When they were made, they had pottery heads and bodies, wooden arms, were painted and were clothed in silk. However, after being buried for over 2000 years, the silk and wood rotted away, leaving these strange, almost alien looking bodies lying around the tomb in disarray. In addition to people, there were thousands of animal figures: horses, bovines, pigs, dogs, chickens, sheep, goats, etc. These were all buried to feed the emperor in the afterlife. I think we were all pretty enamored by the animals. The museum itself was far and away better than what was at the Terracotta Warriors. This museum was all enclosed, air conditioned, lighted in a way to try to preserve the paint on the figures and it actually took you down into the pits where many of the figures still are. So we were walking down in glass cases, looking right, left and below us to examine all of the figurines in situ. Most of us agreed that this was our favourite museum visit yet. We were all ready to buy animal figurines, but unfortunately, the gift shop only sold large, expensive reproductions, so I and others settled for the museum book. Next time I go to the mausoleum, I will be sure to leave my drunk clothes at home.

Buster Poindexter Said It Best…

Hot, hot, hot! It has been ungodly hot here in Xi’an the past couple days. While the official temperature here yesterday was 97, I can tell you from experience that it felt much hotter. We were all sweating buckets yesterday. I remember at one point turning a street corner and feeling like I suddenly hit a wall of heat. My breath was taken away and I was sweating so much I couldn’t see from it stinging my eyes. Luckily, there was a drink stand right there. I think partly due to the hot climate here, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a drink stand in this city. So we were constantly drinking.

A few days ago, three friends and I decided to ask one of the Chinese students if he would help us go to a tailor in town to have clothing made. He said no problem. We set the time to meet for yesterday at 10 am. Well, we had approximately fifteen teachers show up and about eight Chinese students. The group was far too big! We took the bus downtown instead of a taxi, just so that we’d all arrive at the same place at the same time. For 1 Yuan, the 20 minute bus ride was a deal. We then proceeded to walk to the tailor’s shop in the Muslim quarter. We all started packing into this tiny shop and the temperature quickly rose, even with a/c and a fan in the shop. So we had to basically rotate in and out of the shop. We took turns getting measured and picking out fabrics. It’s unbelievable how cheap it is here to get hand-made clothing. For our clothing, I don’t think anyone paid more than $60 for a piece. I am getting a traditional Chinese jacket made (not a Mao jacket) for about $53. I will be able to wear it on special occasion, when I’m talking about this trip or to school when I’m teaching about China. Anyway, we spent nearly two hours in the shop getting everyone taken care of. By the time we were all done, we had basically broken up into smaller groups for getting around, which was fine by me.

Lunch was yummy, as usual. We stopped at our favourite dumpling place next to the Bell Tower in the central square. Then we went to the central post office to mail out postcards and buy stamps. Well, there was like a group of 60 students from France who had been here for a while who were all trying to ship stuff home. The place was a mad house! To top it off, they had run out of stamps! The horror! Finally around three a couple of us took the bus back, and no, there were no chickens or goats on the bus. We stopped at our local post office. Again, they were out of stamps. Let’s see, YOU’RE THE POST OFFICE!! STOCK STAMPS! Yes, I was a little perturbed. Back on campus, I bought ice cream, a cold beer, and cold juice. (See the theme??) After a cold shower, I sat back and enjoyed the air conditioning while reading for class. All things considered, it was a great day.

Terracotta…Not Just for Flower Pots

Wow! My first week in Xi’an has flown by. As you can probably tell from my lack of blogging this week, I’ve been busy. Let me give you a rundown of what the days are like here. Breakfast is served at 7.30 am, which means getting up usually by 6.30 so that both George (my roommate) and I have time to shower before breakfast. Luckily, I’m waking up around 6, so that gives me time to enjoy some tea, check e-mails and ease into the day. It’s been about the only down time I’ve really had. If we’re lucky, we get a hot shower. The hot water reservoir is supposed to be filled by 6 am, but the past couple days, it hasn’t been ready until closer to 7 am. So many of us have had nice cool showers, which actually is a little on the refreshing side. (If you look at the weather we have here in Xi’an, it’s hot and humid.)


Breakfast is pretty enjoyable, typically with a mixture of Chinese and Western foods. This morning I had noodles and French toast with peanut butter. (They don’t quite hit the mark on the Western food.) We usually take about a half hour or 45 minutes just talking, sharing what we’ve thought about a lecture we had, a site we’ve visited, Chinese culture in general, or about our families back home. By 8.30 we’re heading out to walk to class.


From 9.00 until 9.50 we’re in our three language courses. This week has basically focused on getting us used to the Chinese sounds and practicing them, as well as a few basic expressions and words. I have a hard time with the Chinese “r” sound, so maybe I’ll just have to be content with having a slight speech impediment in Chinese. J Actually, “r” isn’t used too often, so I should be good. We also received Chinese names this week. For a last name, I chose Wú, since it at least starts with the same letter as Windt. Our teacher assigned us first names based on either the meanings of our first names or their sounds. She gave me Rùi. Arrgh! The dreaded “r”! So I asked her to give me a new one, one that I can actually pronounce with confidence. So on Monday, I’ll finally have my Chinese name.


From 10 until noon we have our morning lecture. This week we’ve gone from Neolithic China through the Han Dynasty. We’re basically focusing on funerary art: looking at the things that were buried with people. You may think, why?? Well, it actually allows us to see how they lived. Since the Chinese, like the Egyptians, really didn’t believe in death and that people only moved from this life to the next life, people were buried with the things that they’d need in that next life. So people were buried with the things they used every day, plus ceremonial objects. So by examining these objects, we can get a fairly decent picture of what life was like for these people. We can also see how their technology progresses as the sophistication of their burial objects gets better. It might be like someone 2000 years from now digging up more recent graves and noticing that there was a period where watches went from wind-ups with hands to digital (as many people in our society today are buried with watches).


After lunch we either have site visits or curriculum workshops. This week’s site visits have been amazing. By far the best thing was seeing the famous Terracotta Warriors. These warriors stand guarding the burial of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, the man who united China into one nation. The warriors were buried to the east of the tomb to protect the emperor from any threats to the east, as the Qin were originally from the west. These soldiers remained buried for over 2000 years and were only discovered in the 1970s when a farmer, digging a well, found an arm of one of the warriors. I saw where this well was dug. What is amazing is that it’s right at the very front line of the soldiers. Had the farmer dug the well just even five feed further east, these windows into the past may still be hidden.



Well, I know you’re interested in seeing pictures, so I’ll stop writing and get some pictures in here. Enjoy!