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Xi'an is a much smaller city than Shanghai, but has way
more traffic. It was totally bonkers and that includes the roads! The
main highway from the airport to the city, in the outside lane, has a
lamp-post stuck in it! It is not painted white or illuminated, nor is
there a sign warning you about it! Also the power cables on some of the
posts are that old and stretched that cars, vans and cyclists have to
weave through them!
The first day we decided to wander around the Bell and
Drum tower Square. The Bell Tower was built in 1384 by Emperor Zhu
Yuanzhang to provide early warning of attack by rival rulers. When it was
first built it stood near the Drum Tower on the central axis of the city.
As the city grew, the geographical centre changed and so in 1582 they
moved the tower a 1,000 metres east. The Drum Tower is four years older
than the Bell Tower. It once housed a single, huge drum which was
used for telling time and was struck at dusk.
That night we went across to the "California" Beef
Noodle Bar, thinking it must be for tourists as well as locals! Wrong! I
genuinely think we were the first westerners to not have walked into the
place, but to have stayed instead of turning round and running out!
Nobody spoke a word of English and the menus were in Chinese! As we sat
down we noticed that not only were we again being stared at, but some
people were in so much shock that their chopsticks, laden with noodles,
had become stuck in front of their wide open mouths! We luckily managed
to order two lots of noodles and two bottles of water, by pointing at the
food and water on the table of the people sat near us! After five or so
minutes Angela became so uncomfortable with the constant staring that
we changed seats, where upon I began to stare back at people with an
equally gormless expression! The food was nice though, but it had nothing
to do with California! The staring in Thailand was nothing, in Vietnam it
was annoying, and here it is unbelievable. People really do stop walking
as you walk towards them, blatantly stare at you and even point and talk
about you to the people around them! They even follow you into the shops
just to see what you are buying!
On our Wedding Anniversary we went to see the
Terracotta Soldiers. We were both blown away by the size of the place and
the work that was going on. A farmer, who we saw signing autographs of
all things, uncovered some pottery while digging for a well nearby the
royal tomb in 1974. What he found were life-size terracotta warriors and
horses arranged in battle formations from the Qin Dynasty (211 --206 BC).
They are replicas of what the imperial guard would have looked like.
On the way to the site we passed Emperor Qin Shi
Huang's Mausoleum, which is about one and a half kilometres west of the
Terracotta Soldiers. Emperor Qin Shi Huang was the
first emperor of the Qin Dynasty and also of
China. The Mausoleum includes an
underground palace and more than 600 tombs of people buried alive with the
emperor.
At the Terracotta Soldiers the first place we went into
was Pit 1. This is the largest site and has ten partitioning walls
separating the army into different columns. The walls are reinforced with
beams covered in reeds and earth, and the floor is paved with black
bricks. There are more than 6,000 terracotta soldiers and horses in
battle formation. In Pit 2, which contains 1,000 warriors, 500 horses,
and 89 wooden chariots, we also saw the only soldier, an archer, to be
found without any damage at all. They also have an officer, general and
two chariots which have been fully restored, the second chariot taking
eleven years to complete! Pit 3 houses 68 warriors, 4 horses and 1
chariot, but posted on guard duties, not in battle formation. There are
also animal bones and deer horns on the ground, which are probably
sacrifices offered on the eve of a battle. Experts believe this is the
command centre or headquarters for those in the other two pits.
Altogether over 7,000 pottery soldiers, horses,
chariots and weapons have been unearthed. A fourth pit was also
discovered, but it was empty and they believe it was abandoned
after Emperor Qin Shi Huang died.
We also saw one of the general's swords. What is
special about this sword is the fact that it is chrome plated! So what?
Well these soldiers were buried in 206 BC and the "modern" world didn't
discover chrome plating until 1937 and the technique wasn't perfected
until 1950!
One late afternoon we went to De Fu Xiang, which is
pretty much Bar Street, but again not too many tourists go down there! We
found a great bar where one of the waiters spoke pretty good English.
When he came and said goodnight as he was going home, we decided we might
have outstayed our welcome! We have no idea what time it was, but we had
drunk two barrels of beer, no really, they serve beer in five pint barrels
(work that one out Andrea) and a bottle of ok Chinese red wine. |