We began our day in Xian with a trip to see the world renowned terracotta warriors - the army of over 1200 life sized clay soldiers that was built to guard the tomb of one of the Qin emperors. The tomb dates back to over 2,200 years ago! (While we were able to see over 1000 of the soldiers ourselves, scientists predict that there are over 8000 soldiers overall in all of the emperor's tombs and the majority of them have still yet to be discovered or unearthed).Viewing the soldiers was truly awe-inspiring, it was mind boggling to see such a vast array of literally life sized soldiers (not to mention the fact that each soldier has different facial features). In addition, before the sands of time were able to tarnish these relics, each soldiers was painted, from head to toe, with various colors to further their realism. Each soldier is so realistically crafted that our guide literally said you could "read the palm" of any given soldier, and we could even see their finger nails!
After touring the tombs (and viewing a cheesy but informative historical remake/documentary about the creation of the warriors and the ultimate desecration of the the tomb) my mom and I decided to pose with a few of the soldiers for a nice picture (see above) and my mom actually bought a larger-than-life terracotta remake for our house! You can catch a glimpse of her pointing to the (now named) General Wang Jian (our guide thought it up) below!
For those of you that frequent my house, I'm sure you will soon have a first hand encounter with the man himself. After an extensive day of visiting the warriors, we managed to grab a bite to eat at a fantastic (and apparently famous) dumpling restaurant in Xian. Before departing the city for Beijing later that night we were able to make one last stop at the city wall, which is one of the largest in-tact city walls in the world - spanning over 13 kilometers (9ish miles). The picture I snapped stretches, pretty much, as far as the eye can see. Following a quick stop at a local pagaoda we finally headed off to the airport, flying towards my home for the next six weeks - Beijing.
1 comment:
Just finding a book of photographs of the soldiers left me very impressed. I believe you when you say the sight is a bit scary.
You write well. I hope you turn this into a print article for your nearest newspaper when you get home.
As to unknown cities with huge populations, apparently some of them have been built within the past ten years. I guess your tour concentrated on landscape and local color, not factories.
Hope you and your mom have a great time.
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