Day 48: Terra Cotta Warriors

The next morning before heading out to see the Terra Cotta warriors, Jessica and I had to get our train tickets for the way out of Xi'an. No, we weren't leaving yet, we just needed to be prepared for the day we were leaving. Dom and Pablo had already bought tickets for a plane out of Xi'an to Chong Qing on Thursday night.

Around 9, we walked down to the train station, picking up a couple meat sticks for breakfast. They had a bunch sitting off to the left, and then they cooked them in front of you, putting spices on them.

Jessica and I both got two, because we figured the wait to get into the train station would be a while.

Meat sticks on the grill

We got to the train station, and the line was moving much more quickly than we expected. The meat sticks also filled us up more quickly than we expected. I could barely finish both, and Jessica could only finish one. We rushed to throw away the sticks before we went through security, and just barely made it. We went through security, and went to the ticket counter to pick up our tickets.

At first, we were having issues getting our point across to the lady at the ticket counter, but then Jessica pulled up the receipt for our ticket that Celia had sent us when she had helped us buy it. The lady, now understanding, printed them off. We soon discovered after this that the tickets were for Thursday, not for Wednesday like we had previously thought, and we realized that we could stay in the mountains for two days with the guys and still leave the same night.

We headed back to the hotel to wait for the guys. We had agreed the night before to leave at 10, but at 10:10, they still hadn't knocked on our door. At that point, I realized that they may not have known that we were back from the train station, and we went to knock on their door. It turned out that they had overslept....and we waited a bit longer for them in the lobby downstairs.

We checked out of the hotel, because we were going to the mountain that night. However, Pablo figured that there was a place for us to leave our luggage while we explored, and he was right. We left our luggage, and then tried to figure out where to go to catch a bus to the warriors.

We had to walk back and forth down the street with the bus stops, and were eventually directed towards the train station, where we were told to get on a bus that would take us directly there for 7 quai. We sat back and enjoyed the scenery along the 40 minute ride.

 Getting there, there were a variety of stops along the way, including fur shops, and a variety of knickknack shops. We kept walking along the path, seeing lots of restaurants intermingled with the shops. Jessica saw a postcard shop and stopped to try to get some, but realized that postage was tricky and decided against it. I had already joined her, and was intrigued by the designs on the vintage stamps, so I ended up getting some from 1997 (my birth year). Dom also got some spicy mini potatoes that he shared with the rest of us.

Interesting sculpture, from three different angles

 We continued walking, admiring some of the strange things we saw along the way, and we noticed that just about everyone else was going in a different direction from us. Undeterred, we followed the direction the sign had set for us. Getting to the end of the path, there were turnstiles, but they were clearly marked "exit", and so we had to use a translator to ask how to get in. The guys we asked were clearly laughing at us, which was embarrassing, but we dealt with it ok.

 We figured out that they were trying to get us to go back by the KFC, and we went around that way as they said. We discovered that the sign was in a very bad placement, and we had just barely missed seeing it and the turnoff. We walked around to it, seeing the ticket office. A lady outside tried to get us to buy a tour with her, and to think about it before coming back. We opted out of it, and went in. I got a student discount, which was half off my ticket, and was very happy.

 Sign to the entrance of the Terra Cotta Warriors

 We went inside, and walked down a long pathway surrounded by shrubbery and trees. We were wondering if this was all it was, but after about 10 minutes, we came upon another set of turnstiles. We swiped our tickets again and went in.

 First and foremost, we went into a museum area, which had much of the history of the Terra Cotta warriors. It also had a lot of the antiques that were dug up out of several of the pits. The warriors were made in order to protect the grave site of China's first emperor (and then they covered all of it up for good measure). The warriors weren't discovered until the 1970s, and soon after it became a major tourist attraction, with buildings built over the pits, and the museum next door.

Metal horses attached to a chariot pulled out of one of the pits

Mural in ancient Chinese fashion

Ancient arrows

Horse whipping rods

 There was also a signed document from the Prince of Spain recognizing the Terra Cotta warriors as a legitimate archeological find.

After that, we went to the first pit, (which turned out to be Pit #2) and it had mostly broken warriors and fragments, but it was absolutely huge and awe inspiring.

 There were also perfect warriors in glass cases for people to see. There were different types, from archers, to officers, to regular old soldiers. But each and every warrior was different in some way, and you have to marvel at the creators' ingenuity all those centuries ago.

Rubble of broken warriors

Pit #2 views

 Then we went into Pit #3, seeing the sign that said it had been unearthed by conquering forces, but it looked significantly better than Pit #2. It was smaller, but its warriors were still intact, and it had lots more majesty.

Pit #3 warriors

Finally, we saved the best for last, Pit #1, with the famous rows upon rows of warriors. It was vastly impressive, as hundreds of warriors filled the pit, and we got to see a bit closer to them than we did in the other pits. Really seeing their detail made it even more impressive!

Iconic soldiers at Pit #1

Apparently there is a restoration committee according to the red barrier there

As we were going to leave the Terra Cotta warriors, a man came up to us, trying to sell Dom mini Terra Cotta figurines, and he kept telling him to go away. The man started at 50 quai, and then kept going down, despite our best efforts to get rid of him. When he said 20 quai, Dom was interested, thinking it was for the whole set, but the man said it was for one figurine. Dom kept walking away until the man lowered the prices to 20 quai for the whole set. At that point, I decided to get a set too....at $3, it was a steal.

Terra Cotta gift set and never thought I'd see "warriors" and "friendship" in the same phrase

After that, we wandered around for a bit to make sure that there were no more places that we had missed. While wandering, we saw pictures of foreign dignitaries who had visited the Terra Cotta Warriors, including the Bushes, Clintons, and Vladimir Putin. We also saw that there was a track field around the museum, which was interesting. Satisfied, we wandered back out of the museum area, and went to find food.

We ended up getting fresh pomegranate juice (which tastes amazing, by the way) and some noodles with ham and a salty broth. It was a great way to end our visit to the Terra Cotta warriors.

 To our amusement, some of our cups had misspellings, and others didn't. On mine, even "Quality" was misspelled.....and that, folks, is when you know something is NOT quality....

We continued to walk around the shops, admiring some of the things for sale, and being very amused at others. Pablo and I both got kites that had several kites attached. It was way too cool not to pick up one for myself. The others encouraged Pablo to haggle for a better price, and he ended up getting one for 10 quai. I got one with phoenixes, which was really cool, because phoenixes are my favorite animal!

Complete fashion disaster of a mannequin

 After everything, we went to get on the bus back to the train station. We did so, going to get our luggage from the hotel first and foremost. After that, we went back to the train station to get our tickets to the mountain area. It turned out that we had to go to the other train station in Xi'an to do so, so we had to catch a taxi. It took longer than expected, but we still got there with plenty of time to spare. Getting to the other train station, we found that it was similar to the one in Shanghai...that is, it was a bullet train station. We breathed a sigh of relief since our ordeal yesterday was still lingering in our mind, and I rested while the others wandered around the train station. They came back, and I went to get popcorn chicken from KFC. I pointed at the menu, and they still gave me fries for some reason. Resigned to my fate, I ate them.

Pablo and Dom went back upstairs, and he had brought back popcorn chicken to share, to my delight. I traded him some fries for it, and soon after, it was time to board the train. About an hour after getting on the train, we were near the mountains. We needed a taxi to get to the hotel near the base of the mountain though, since it turned out the buses were no longer running.

A man approached us asking if we wanted a taxi, but his price was way too high, and we were thinking that it wasn't a legitimate taxi as well, but a guy with his private car trying to make some money. We were trying to get him off our tail, but he pointed at his car, and it was a real taxi. We did some more negotiations with him, and got him down to 40 quai, and let him take us there.

He took us to a place called the Xi'an Youth Hostel....which was somewhat shady, but turned out not to be a hostel, since there were two beds to a room. There wasn't wifi, toilet paper or soap though, which was a bit annoying. I decided to go out with the others to dinner and to get snacks for the mountain. I got breakfast biscuits, Oreos, grape juice, peanuts, and some fruit.

We went to dinner, and we split some dumplings, noodles, and Dom got a sweet and sour chicken dish which had the bones still in it, and a taste that none of us enjoyed. There was a catfish in the corner that we thought was dead, because it was in about 10 inches of very dirty water, and it didn't move, even when I tapped on the glass. We were wondering why the owners would leave a dead fish on display.But about halfway through the meal, Pablo jumped, exclaiming "It's alive!", and the fish was wriggling for a few seconds. It then stopped moving and stayed in that position for the rest of the meal. Also, three of the plastic cups we were using for the water sprung leaks, and we had to grab other cups from behind the counter.

After paying, we headed back to the hotel, getting the heat sorted out (it turned out we were using the wrong remote for the heater) and getting some rest for our early morning hike up the mountain.