A Journey to the Past - Day 1!

This weekend we travelled to Xi'an in central China for a glimpse into thousands of years of history! I booked this trip with a local travel agent who speaks lovely English and was able to get us an English speaking guide for the two days we were there! Our dear guide deserves an entry devoted soley to her, so I won't go into much detail, I will only say that she definitely made an impression and we learned more than we ever really wanted to know about Xi'an!!

Here we are leaving bright and early on Saturday morning. We took the 8:00am flight which meant a wake up call at 5:00am!! I think frozen yogurt is appropriate when you have to wake up that early, plus we are almost positive it was really TCBY!!

We arrived in Xi'an in about 1 1/2 hours and were met by our guide and our driver (travel agent also reserved car and driver for the weekend!!). We were promptly whisked away to see the Banpo Village which is outside of the city center. This site was basically some dirt that possibly showed an outline of an old village - but they may have been pushing it!! The biggest excitement there was that Ellie and Ethan had to be rushed to a very dirty squatty potty to go #2. This was El's first time, so by the end, we basically had all of her clothes off and then she was able to go!! Thank goodness!!

Our next visit was to the factory where they produce the replicas of the famed Terra Cotta Warriors! It was very interesting. They use special clay supplied by the government, place them in molds, carve the details, and then put them in the kiln for a few days to a week depending on their size. There are five different poses, the archer, the infantry soldier, the general, and two others that I can't think of right now!! We bought all five poses of 1 1/2 foot soldiers - where they are going to go, I have no idea!! But I do have 40 days to figure it out while I wait for them to arrive!!

Thankfully the kids did not talk us into buying this horse!! Can you imagine what the packers would think when we move back??!!

After the factory we finally got to go and visit the Terra Cotta Warriors - I was extremely excited!! This was the main reason why we came to Xi'an, to see one of the 8 wonders of the world!! These soldiers, apparently there were 6,000 made and only 2,000 have been discovered thus far, were found by a farmer looking for water in 1974!! The government has covered four huge pits that house the warriors. This is the original site where they were found and according to our guide, a robber helped the archeologists know where to dig. Now, he could only find the sites at night because that is when he would typically do his robbing - duh, we all should know that!!

This is pit 1 and it is the largest of the 4!
This is us at the other end of pit 1!

Every one of the 6,000 warriors has a different face. When they were made to protect Emperor Qin in the afterlife, they were all painted, but now when the archeologists unbury the pieces, the paint comes off within three days of being exposed. One can only imagine how magnificently real these soldiers must have looked when they were originally made. The generals are a towering 6 feet tall and the rest of the soldiers were a bit smaller!!

Here you can see a little bit of color that for some reason or another did not disappear!

They are still working at the sites and typically come in after 6:00 when the museum closes. Here are some of the pictures from different work areas. You can see that the soldiers are discovered in pieces and then put back together!

All of the pieces of the puzzle...

Almost done!

It was an amazing site and the kids even seemed to enjoy the 3 hours we spent there!! The rain came towards the end of the afternoon, so we decided to call it a day!!