On my second day (first full day) in Xi’an, I woke up early and got some breakfast. Then I had to watch Roy Halladay finish his no-hitter against the Reds. (Phuck the Phillies!!!!) Then it was time for me to go out and do something. But what you ask? And thanks for asking because otherwise there would be no reason for me to continue this blog.
Since this was our only full-day in Xi’an, this was the day we chose to go to see the Museum of the Terracotta Warriors. The Terracotta Warriors are one of the oh, let’s say fifty sites that I’ve been to that claim to be the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” A little background is that some great emperor died around two thousand years ago and decided to have buried with him terracotta statues of around eight thousand soldiers, including generals, archers, chariots, horses and all kinds of other little trinkets. This fake army laid buried for centuries until a farmer trying to dig a well happened along them in 1973. Now, it is a huge tourist attraction.
To get to the site of the Terracotta Warriors, we needed to take a bus to the train station and then catch another bus out to the site. Getting out there wasn’t much of a problem, though the bus to the site doesn’t go directly to the site and we had to walk a bit to get there. No biggie, though.
The site itself is impressive, but I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed. There are three pits. Most of the soldiers in the smaller pits, Pits 2 & 3, are still buried because as soon as they uncover them, they have a habit of losing their color and they are trying to prevent that from happening. In Pit 1, you actually see an army of warriors standing guard for the fallen king. Don’t get me wrong. It is definitely one hell of a sight. I think that, maybe, I was expecting a little more. I shouldn’t hold that against them. It wasn’t their fault.
Getting back wasn’t a big deal, at least with respect to the first bus. Catching the bus from the train station to the hostel, however, was reminiscent of the evacuation of the American Embassy after the fall of Saigon. It was hundreds of people trying to rush onto busses as soon as the doors were opened, with pushing and shoving and probably some obscenities being uttered, though I don’t know enough Chinese to confirm that.
In the evening, I went walking around Xi’an with some folks and we came across a bar/restaurant-infested area. We decided to stop in an interesting-looking restaurant for dinner and it turned out to be a good idea. We got the menu and it was in Chinese with English-ish descriptions. None of the translations made sense and we ended up ordering “Hemp Flame Beef” along with another beef dish and pork dish. We didn’t know exactly what we were getting, but it turned out to be the best meal I have had in China so far. The Hemp Flame Beef turned out to be a cold, thinly-cut beef dish in a spicy pepper sauce. My favorite, though, was the pork dish, which was sort of like boiled bacon in a salty/sweet sauce with twisted bread sticks, onions and other vegetables. I was very, very pleased.
After dinner, a we walked into the Muslim Quarter, which is fun at night because it’s full of stands selling traditional street foods and a lot of stands selling touristy stuff. It reminded me of San Telmo in Buenos Aires a little bit except that food is much more important at the street market in Xi’an. I bought a souvenir or two, though I was full and didn’t try any more local foods.
That was pretty much it for the only real full day in Xi’an.
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