We had a short break in between Chad's travels and our summer trip home, so we decided it was time for a short vacation. There are a lot of places in China that we'd like to see. Obviously being here, the first place that comes to mind would be Beijing. However, we decided to hold off on that trip until we either get some visitors or later this fall. So lucky for us some friends of ours had just gotten back from a vacation to Xi'an, China. They had a great time and provided some great recommendations, so I was able to plan a short trip for us.
We flew out here Wednesday night at 8pm and landed in Xi'an at 10:20pm. Our guide met us at the airport and then drove us an hour to our hotel. Needless to say, we were all just a tad tired when we arrived :)
Our hotel- Bell Tower Hotel
View from our hotel of the Bell Tower
At night
Thursday morning we didn't start until 10:30am since we went to bed so late. Started out with a great McDonald's breakfast and met our guide, Jim, in our lobby. Our first stop was the Terracotta Warriors Museum. It took an hour to get there, but was well worth the drive! I'm not a huge history buff by any means, but this place was AMAZING!!
Here's some facts..
The Terracotta Army was discovered in March 1974 by 3 farmers. The Terracotta Army was found near the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuang, which took 38 years and 720 thousand builders to complete. The Terracotta Army was buried for 2,200 years. So far, 1,868 terracotta warriors and chariots have been unearthed.
There were 3 farmers that discovered these. One of them has already passed away, but here is the kids with another one of them. We bought a book and he signed it for us.
Here's 2 of our warriors we bought from the museum. They are the General and the kneeling archer. The archer is significant as there was only one intact warrior found and it was him.
Here's the real warrior.
Outside of one of the Pits
Pit 2- A large pit, but most of it is still underground. They are waiting to find a new technology to preserve the remains better. They have found that the artifacts are losing their original color after being exposed.
Pit 3- The smallest pit
Pit 1- The site where the farmers were digging the well. This site is HUGE and really incredible!!
Area where they were 'fixing' the warriors up. I couldn't imagine having that job!
You can tell by the pictures of how big this place was!!
Here's another angle of the well site. It gives you an idea as to how close they could've came to missing EVERYTHING!!!
It was a very beautiful area and a great change of scenery from Shanghai :)
Summer has arrived. Time to bring out the umbrellas :) LOL
In the same area we visited another museum with more artificats found.
Sumo wrestler, because we all need one of those in our afterlife ;)
This vacation did have to push me a bit and forced me out of my comfort zone. First, we found out that the touristy areas here do not have the best bathrooms. Which really means down right nasty squatters!!
As you all know I'm just a tad picky when it comes to food :) After being here for almost 6 months I still haven't managed to break out of that habit and try local food. However, you will all be happy to hear that we ventured out for 3, yes 3, meals in Xi'an at LOCAL restaurants WITH chopsticks :) LOL
For lunch we ate at a local restaurant and had their specialty, chicken with pomegranate. When mixed with rice was actually, dare I say, good...
We then headed back to our hotel to visit a Mosque nearby. We learned that this area had a very large Muslim population. First we visited this old Mosque and then walked down a couple roads in the Muslinm quarters where they had a lot of shopping and food.
Headed back to our hotel and had Pizza Hut delivered :) Definitely was no easy task, 1st not having delivery service and 2nd, Pizza Hut calling us back to let us know they didn't have pepperoni!! Ha.. However, thanks to a great doorman and a 15 minute conversation with Pizza Hut discussing what pepperoni is, we had a great pepperoni pan crust pizza!! MMMM
Next morning, met with Jim at 9am to head out to the City Wall. The whole city of Xi'an still has an intact wall around it and we were able to go up and walk on a section of it. It was fun, minus the usual Chinese paparazzi!! Thankfully, the kids have learned to say, "bu yao" which means - don't want :) Ha
On top of the wall
Brady firing off some cannons :)
Also has a moat surrounding the outside of the wall
We then drove over to visit an old China home. Our guide's boss' grandma actually still lives in this cave home. This home was about 20 years old and was pretty much a large hole in a mountain. It stayed cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It did have electricity, but had just 2 rooms. One of the rooms being storage, mostly for wood to burn. The bathroom and kitchen were outside in another more 'modern' building.
Entrance of the home
Back storage room
Brand new puppies!
Pictures of his grandma and grandpa. They weren't there that day just his cousin.
Cousin's child
The bed- Chinese beds are incredibly hard, but I'm pretty sure this one beats them all. They are sleeping on bricks!
There is this opening for 'heating' up the bed by putting coal in there to burn.
And then here's the exit outside.
The kitchen
Our last visit was to the underground museum. It was a pretty modern museum and relatively a new one.
The untouched tomb- Just like the warriors they are not going to dig these up until they have the perfect technology available to be able to preserve the remains.
Kids got a kick out the booties we had to wear :) This museum was very dark so my pics didn't turn out that great so I took videos instead. The floor was glass so you could walk over it and look down which was cool. All of this stuff buried was there for the Emperors' afterlife. Crazy!
Kids with Rafael, a great man.. We were supposed to have him as our guide however he had double booked us so that was why we we ended up with Jim. So to make it up to us he took us out to a local restaurant and ordered some food for us. That by far was the most adventurous I have been in the last 6 months!!! However, I am pleased to say I survived :)
He also gave us gifts- I got tea and the kids each got their own warriors!
5:15am Saturday morning, bright and early, up to get ready to head to the airport. Flight left at 8am and landed back in Shanghai at 10am.
Great trip!!
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