Xian: Day 6

Waking up in Xian to a big chinese breakfast buffet was awesome. We all jumped in the van and drove about an hour outside the city to the Terracotta Soldiers. On the way there, William pointed out this statue of the "angels". 

 

The area outside of Xi'an is mountainous and full of farms and trees. In that area, they grow most of the peaches and pomegranates for the country and for some of the world. 

Once we got to the terra-cotta warrior museum, we went to the first building of three. This is where the original soldiers were discovered by a farmer trying to dig a well. 

In the front of the picture - that's where the farmer ended up digging into and fining the soldiers. 

This area is the repair area. Most of the soldiers were looted and bashed before they got covered in deep layers of dirt. The workers take the parts from an area and try to assemble the soldiers back into one piece. 

This is me at 5'10" next to some replicas of the soldiers made by the museum. You can get these shipped home for a trillion bucks but they have mini soldiers as well. 

Here is a close up of a fully intact archer - one of the 5 types of soldiers found in the museum. 

This building had most the the horses and generals. 

There were two chariots built for the emperor - one for him (below) and one for his concubines. 

After the warriors, we went to a chinese museum! I loved it there!

Not to bore you with all the pictures I took, I chose the best two to feature here! This crane or swan is not very easy to make because of the long neck and the detail in the butt feathers. It's super old but I think it's gorgeous.

This is a buddha surrounded by lots of mini buddhas. It's very important to the Buddhists but I loved the different sizes and the irony of having the walls around a buddha made with little buddhas.

For the day, I wore an old Banana Republic skirt, a thick white t-shirt and my trusty Madewell Flats and Longchamp. 

After the museum, we went to a mosque that has Chinese architecture. 

After the mosque and some shopping, we had hot pot for dinner. Basically you cook your meat in the little pot and drip in into a sauce that you make. It's really good.

We went to the store and got some snacks for the AM and some alcohol for the PM. It was nice to hang out and relax before getting to bed for another early morning flight.