The Terracotta Army

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  Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Last nights journey was probably the best hard seat journey so far, although we were still pretty knackered when we got to Xi'an as we caught up from the last few days - our first day was mainly sleeping. We met Joel and after the first night we changed to a cheaper hostel. It was a huge city but quite nice to walk around - we were next to the bell tower and drum tower and the Muslim quarter with a large market with many different foods and souvenirs.

In Xi'an I also managed to meet up with Lukas and Dominique from Germany again, it was good to see them and catch up on stories - they are the people I've known longest on this journey so far and it felt like meeting up with long lost friends!

I took a trip with the boys up to the Big Goose Pagoda - in the evening there is a fountain show with lights set to classical and Chinese music - it's free and quite impressive to watch.

Later we met up with Zsuzsanna and Joel. We walked down one street to find 2 girls burning fake money. We were intrigued and asked to have a look but they didn't speak any English. As we walked further on, we found more people burning money in the street and 10's of piles of ashes in mounds where more had been burned before. We thought perhaps there had been a police raid. It was only when we joked about it in the hostel that we were told it was burned for a funeral - we were more than a little embarrassed.

Later we decided to hit a few bars - starting in the Loco club - a place with live singers, the bar staff in superhero masks and a couple of people in Mickey and Mouse costumes - it was a little bizarre.

Big Goose Pagoda fountain show

We stayed for a while, watching the singers and dancers and taking part in a conga line - Joel pushed me in to lead it at one point but I escaped after a half circle of the club!

From there we tried to find another club but the best we could find was a 'friend swapping club'! Each table had a phone and a number on a lamp above it. You were supposed to call people that you like the look of! The boys gave it a few joke turns but no one seemed to want to play along (or understand us!) so after a while we called it a night.

I guess the main reason people go to Xi'an is to see the Terracotta Army and it was certainly on my list of places to visit. We first visited a gallery and museum there and then entered one of the pits. Unfortunately this one was probably the least impressive with just a few broken remains - we were a little deflated. We soon brightened up though when we found pit one - the most impressive part, although you still couldn't get very close to the actual warriors and I still think it's more the concept of it - how huge it is, and the work that went into it that is most astounding, the actual pit is just the proof of that.

We also tried to get our visa's extended here but when we went to the PSB office we were told it would take 10 days and that we'd have to have proof of tickets out, and sufficient funds in our bank. We didn't really want to spend so long in Xi'an so after a few days we moved on...

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Lukas and Dominique	Burning fake money for a funeral	Joel and Mickey and the Loco Club	The Loco Club
The friend-swapping club...	Kites at sunset	Gallary at the Terracota Army	The Terracota Army Horses
The Terracota Army - Horse buried in wall	A Warrior	The Terracota Army	The Terracota Army
The Terracota Army	The Terracota Army - Horses	The Terracota Army	The Terracota Army
Crowd at the train station as we left

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