Xi'an...the land of Ping-Pong and the Terra-Cotta army

Back in Beijing, we booked an overnight train to a town called Xi'an (pronounced She-an), home of the famous Terra-cotta Warriors. It seemed we were the only tourists on the train and possibly in the whole train station (one of the biggest in the world) since everyone was staring and pointing at us and some even came up and took a picture with us! So we were a little worried about the train but it turned out pretty good. We had the top bunk (3-high) across from each other and had a good night's sleep thanks to our sleeping pills. The only problem was the bathroom - how are you supposed to use a squat toilet on a moving train? Once in Xi'an we got a free pick-up from our hostel, which is always nice. All the hostels we stayed at in China were essentially the same. They offered a range of tours depending on location and had a bar/restaurant serving western food and Americanized Chinese food. No complaints there. The hostel in Xi'an was our favorite, though, because they arranged cool activities every day for all the guests. Our first night we had a big trivia tournament (my team got 2nd, but the 1st team cheated). The second day had the best activity of all - ping pong lessons from a professional. The moment I saw this guy I knew he was a ping pong master. He just had the look. Sure enough, the guy could ball. I consider myself an above-average ping pong player (Grand Mayan Puerto Vallarta champion), but this guy could literally beat me playing behind his back. The spin he'd put on the ball was mind-boggling. When he wasn't completely embarrassing me, he taught Steph and I a lot. He told Steph (through a translator) "I have seen your weakness. I will teach you in 10 minutes what it would take you a year to learn." He was a fan of Steph's game and gave her a lot of compliments ("you have the quickness of a 16-year-old"), but I think he did say my positioning was "beautiful," if I remember right. We had a great time in the presense of the master and are already trying to figure out we'll be able to get our own ping pong table. Gonna be a while.

The master, Mr. Zhou

The real thing you come to Xi'an is, of course, the Terra-Cotta Warriors. Steph and I went to the exhibition when it came through Atlanta a few years ago so we've been wanting to go ever since then. The site is an incredible archaeological discovery. It was built in around 210 BC for the First Emperor of Qin to help him rule another empire in his afterlife but was completely lost until one day in 1974 a farmer decided to dig a well. The spot he picked was at the very edge of Pit 1, which has the rows of soldiers that you've probably seen pictures of. Literally a couple feet the other direction and the site may have never been discovered. What came next must've been like winning the lottery for archaeologists. In the following few years, a total of three pits have been unearthed. Even today, just a small portion of the site has actually been dug-up. Who knows what else is under there. The first pit, as I said is home to the "army." Every soldier is different. There are foot soldiers, kneeling archers, standing archers, and horse's with accompanying carriage. I hadn't realized this before, but almost every soldier has been smashed to bits and has to be rebuilt piece by piece. Originally the rows of soldiers were in an enclosure covered by wooden beams and layers of woven pads and soil, all of which eventually collapsed and reeked havoc on the soldiers.  The peasants who rebelled against the emperor and raided and burned the place soon after it was built didn't help either.  A lot of the jigsaw puzzle of piecing these guys back together is still ongoing and probably will be for quite some time.  In Pit 1 then have uncovered about 2,000 soldiers, but estimate it to contain about 6,000!

Pit 1

this guy is in bad shape

Pit 2 has a lot more calvarymen but still another 1,300 soldiers. The original "roof" of the enclosure I guess is still in good condition and is largely still in place, so you don't really get to see the goods underneath. They have a little museum next to it where you can see a few of the different soldiers as well as some of the weapons they were buried with.

Pit 2: mostly just a bunch of dirt

kneeling archer

Pit 3 is somewhat of the command center - it's where all the military leaders and strategists were buried.

some of the carnage in Pit 3

Also at the site there is a big museum, which is home to the creepiest statue's ever. Apparently as some sort of goodwill gesture for the Beijing Olympics, they build a giant terra-cotta soldier holding hands with a creepy-looking little girl. The pair are the worlds largest marionette puppets, which makes it more strange.

The museum also has a lot more artifacts found in the pits and, in typical Chinese fashion, a bunch of propaganda talking about how great they are.

Considering we hung around for three days, I'd like to say we enjoyed the town of Xi'an. I wanted to. Thought I would. But, I did not. It was constantly ensconced in a cloud of misty smog. At first I thought it was just a foggy place, but it was definitely pollution. A whole lot of it. The town wasn't all that scenic either, though we did get to visit our first Walmart since leaving home! It was quite a different experience than we were used to, unless the Walmarts back home have started selling live turtles (and not in the pet section). Xi'an is the world's largest completely-walled city. There is a big wall that forms a rectangular around the downtown area. Our last day we decided to rent a bike and some gasmasks (not really) to bike around the top of the wall. Since, we had never done it before, we opted for the novelty tandem bike, which produced the humorous results you'd expect. We never crashed though, which was good, especially since Steph made it very clear what she'd do to me if I caused us to crash. The ride wasn't all that scenic, but you get a good view of some of the more interesting goings-on in town. They had a bunch of wacky light-up floats up on the wall for a celebration of some sort. Our favorite thing we saw was a small band playing some really strange (and not very pleasant) music with a lady singing that made it over the top weird.

yuck

lots of these strange statues

It was a nice, relaxing few days in Xi'an but other than wishing for more lessons from the ping pong master, we were ready for another overnight train to Shanghai!