Day 7 - Warrior Mania

Sunday, June 14, 2009 in U.S.A.

We woke up to Bruce knocking on the train cabin door of our room. It was bright and early, we were almost to Xi’an. We were pleasantly surprised to find that none of the bathroom horror stories were true. We originally thought that the bathroom was a giant rust ball with a huge hole in the floor, with no modern toilet, that lead straight to the tracks. Fortunately, the bathrooms were western style, but the toilet excrement did lead strait to the tracks! Where are the health codes???

The ride was smooth, but a bit foreign. Once the train stopped, we were on our way to meet our new tour guide, Cathy, and her assistant Melody. We found our new bus driver named, Master Jong (pronounced master “Juan”), and rode to our new hotel for breakfast and check-in. The hotel is marvelous! Our new hotel is sublime in every way, shape, and form! The staff, the room, and the entry hall are glorious and expert quality in every way. After eating breakfast and dropping off our stuff in the rooms we went straight to the Terracotta factory where they assembled life size figures to mini Terracotta warriors, wooden furniture with intricate inlays, and many other things.

Terracotta warriors were made during the Qin dynasty, when the Emperor ordered the construction of 6 foot tall clay soldiers to protect him during his afterlife. The Emperor was originally going to execute 6,000 of his strongest warriors so they would protect him during the afterlife, but a medicine man said the clay soldiers would suffice. Overtime, those clay soldiers have been damaged and buried under the earth. Recently, as in the 1970’s, a farmer was digging and found the remnants of the soldiers. The area was excavated and 1,500 of those clay Terracotta warriors are on display in a museum. However, there are still 5,000 more Terracotta warriors still buried under the earth… this is because once the warriors are extracted from the earth, the majestic colors they are said to have, diminish due to oxidation of the paint.

After visiting the factory where the Terracotta warrior models are made, we were able to actually visit the Terracotta Warrior museum. We saw the actual excavation site and we saw Mr. Young, the farmer who accidentally discovered the warriors. We also saw the warriors themselves, and watched a short informational video on the history. We did the site seeing plus more in the blazing heat and extreme humidity. After a quick, light lunch near the museum, we came back to the hotel and took much needed showers, along with a rest. At 6:30pm we left for a Dumpling feast, which had chicken dumplings in the shape of chickens and walnut flavored dumplings in the shape of walnuts. We were also treated to ice cream and Starbucks afterwards. It was a pleasant way to end an exhausting day that began with a train ride.

This was a compilation of Sabrina’s and Savanna’s outlook on the day’s events.