Monday, May 16th Travel to Xian and visit to the Terracotta Warriors

We had our first really early morning today. We awoke, packed, and had to checkout by 5:45 AM. We didn’t leave the hotel until 7:00, but we had to start the checkout process early because they search every room before they let us leave to make sure we didn’t steal anything. We headed to the hotel, went through check in and security in a couple hours. Then had some time before our plane left at 10:30 for Xi’an. We were supposed to depart from the airport at 10:00 and get to Xian by 12:30 and then go to see the Terracotta Warriors. But we were quite a bit late. We landed in Xian and it looked like we were in the middle of nowhere. There was still plenty of smog, but very few buildings. We drove an hour through the countryside until we arrived at the Warriors. There was a lot of confusion at the museum and we only had an hour to see all the pits before needing to head to the busses and off to a banquet dinner.

The warriors were pretty amazing. We went through excavation pit #2, then #3, then #1. I’m glad we didn’t miss pit #1 because it is the best. There were a couple hundred soldiers lined up with some horses mixed sporadically among them. We were able to stand and watch part of the process of putting a soldier together. Of course, the process takes a long time and we didn’t see much, but it was still cool to watch.

Then we headed to the Chang’an University for our banquet dinner. It sure is nice to get back to the Chinese Lazy Susan dinner. For the past couple of days we have had lots of the Chinese version of American food. I’ve had more KFC in the last couple days than in the past 19 years. At each meal there are between 1 and 2 dozen dishes that we eat from. Most of the time we have no idea what the food is until we taste it or ask someone at the restaurant who speaks English. We recognize the basic meats and vegetables, but the Chinese make good use of just about everything edible. We had jellyfish, Chinese meatloaf, and a sticky rice pumpkin. The pumpkin was great. They scraped out the inside of the pumpkin and filled it with sticky rice. After we ate the rice they brought the pumpkin and we ate that plain. It was super good. One of the cold dishes today for dinner looked and tasted a lot like beef. It was a hit with our table and was gone quickly. Later we were told that it was not beef. It was donkey!

After dinner we headed to the Paradise Resort. Before the tour started, we were told that all of our hotels would be nice places. They all have been nice, but not super awesome. There was a rumor going around that the Paradise Resort was overrated and actually an awful hotel. We were pleasantly surprise, at first. There was an awesome waterfall sort of pond in the lobby that was quite impressive. The place was only three floors high and the center area was open all the way up with the breakfast and restaurant at the bottom. The rooms were nice too, but nothing fancy and all the carpets were badly stained. But overall it was a very comfortable hotel and so far, everyone’s favorite. Xian is also a gorgeous “little” town. We drove through at night and all the buildings were lit up with bright lights.

Mountains around Xian

Landed in the middle of nowhere

Waiting for our luggage

Pretty much every place in China has awesome bridges and huge buildings

Tall carriage from a terracotta pit

Short carriage

Excavation Pit #2

Horse and worker from pit #2

Soldier from pit #2

Pit #3

Pit #1

Me at the biggest of the Terracotta Warrior pits

Like father, like daughter

Piecing some warriors together

Horses from the pit

Digging in process

Lots of warriors found in this pit and they have only uncovered half of them

Sticky rice pumpkin (I am definitely going to be experimenting this summer with Chinese cuisine.

Best pumpkin I have ever eaten

A really good dinner

Donkey meat

Paradise resort

Waterfall from the ceiling, at least 40 feet

Other entrance to our hotel