China: Xi'an

Xi’an 15.05-18.05

We got to our hostel in Xi’an and figured out it had taken us 28 hours from door-to-door! We treated ourselves to huge breakfasts and had very long showers. The Hostel had amazing authentic Chinese décor with red lanterns and life-size terracotta warrior statues all over the place. The main reason for our visit to Xi’an was to see the Terracotta Warriors or ‘Soldier Horse Pottery’ as their name can be translated to from Chinese. The whole area surrounding the Warriors has unfortunately been planned out with loads of tourist shops, stalls, restaurants and there was even a ‘ghost experience’- which looked like business was going terribly. The complex itself was separated into 3 pits. Pit 1 is the ‘main event’, as you walk in you see thousands of perfectly excavated terracotta soldiers and horses all in battle formation staring at you. Each soldier is completely unique and the detail is amazing. They were built in around the 3^rd Century B.C. in order to protect Emperor Qin, the first emperor of China, in the afterlife and were discovered by farmers trying to dig a well! As Emperor Qin didn’t want them to be disturbed, they were never mentioned in any documents and he had all the builders of the complex killed after they had finished so nobody would know the location! Pit 2 was yet to be excavated and really showed how difficult it must be to uncover the soldiers without damaging them. Finally Pit 3 was a lot smaller and served as the ‘command centre’ of the Terracotta Warriors in Pits 1 and 2. The zoom lens was used in force and proved its worth as we managed to get some great close-up pictures of some of the soldiers.

We also had a good walk around Xi’an city and found the really interesting and lively Muslim Quarter which had loads of markets and street restaurants. We tried some fried tofu and went into a bakery and picked out an unusual looking pastry with Chinese writing on it that turned out to be delicious. We also wanted to get some dinner so we entered a restaurant, pointed at some noodles and gestured for them not to be too spicy. The noodles turned out to be served cold with a really bitter peanut sauce that left quite an aftertaste. Although, we weren’t complaining as our meal came to the total cost of a pound. The antique alley had lots of interesting bits and bobs including posters, tea-sets, Chinese games, jewellery and lots of communist-themed souvenirs. We couldn’t resist getting a pack of Mao playing cards and were very tempted by the Mao alarm clock!

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