Terra Cotta Warriors

June 23, 2019

Warriors

It was a little different than Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior made it out to be, but the Terra Cotta Warriors were pretty amazing. It was so shocking to see how good of shape they were in for being thousands of years old. There were a few missing heads here and there, but it really was crazy how good they looked. It was also amazing the quantity of pits and figures. It seemed never ending, and it basically is. Apparently there are so many untouched pits because they want to keep them preserved. Not digging them up is the best way to do that.

I also really like the story of how they were discovered. There had always been rumors something like the warriors existed, but no one had any physical evidence. One day a farmer was digging a well and to his surprise found thousands of warriors buried beneath ground. Kinda made me want to go home and see what's in my yard.

We also learned some history about why the warriors were made. The emperor at the time wanted to create a life size army to protect his tomb in the afterlife. He also had 750,000 real followers buried alive to protect him as well. This included his thousands of wives. When one emperor dies it is like the end of his dynasty so all people associated with him have to die as well.

Wild Goose

Next we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda after lunch at KFC. This is a famous Buddhist temple. Our tour guide was great and shared a lot of information with us. The Wild Goose Pagoda was named because one day when the town didn't have any food to eat they asked God for a miracle. All of a sudden there were geese flying around and they all dropped dead and fell to the ground. They realized this was the miracle, but instead of eating the goose, they buried it and built the Pagoda on top as a way to say thank you.

Our tour guide also gave a brief lessen on Chinese writing. She showed the old pictograms vs the new ones. It is a really beautiful language. She was very kind and wrote everyone's names on rice paper and explained their Chinese meanings.

I'm Still Full

We had our last group dinner in Xi'an. The food is different, but I've really been enjoying it. At the restaurants we've been going to, they charge us if we don't finish the food. You’d think with 11 guys and 2 girls it’d be easy, but we’ve been struggling. The food seems to be endless, but I think this dinner might've been the closest we've come to finishing everything. I really enjoy the dumplings and the soup was so good. I can't describe the flavor, but it was the first soup we all finished.