We had a very early start to our day since our luggage needed to be in the hotel lobby at 4:30a.m. A small breakfast buffet was set up for us and soon we were on our way to the airport. Forest helped us get checked in and led us the security line. I had packed our race medals in my backpack and after it went through the scanner the security officers asked me to dig them out. I guess they were curious as to what it was they saw on the x-ray. With relative ease we were on our way to the gate.
We all had a chuckle when we heard boarding announcements that sounded like “Now boarding flight MU2015A8X43Z3450482”. None of us had ever heard such long flight number before and it sounded really funny.
The flight to Xian was just a couple of hours long, but they did provide breakfast on the plane. It consisted of some sort of rice oatmeal type of dish, vegetables, a bun with some weird powdery substance in the middle, and plain yogurt. The yogurt was the only thing I could really stomach.
Upon arrival in Xian we met our new tour guide, Kayla (or something like that). Unfortunately for her everyone was already comparing her to Forest. The group coined the phrase FSA – Forest Separation Anxiety. Our first stop was at a place where they make replica Terra Cotta Warriors and lacquer furniture. We were shown how a local master artist can make your head for a life-size terra cotta warrior for your garden for just $1,000. Somehow I don’t think that would really fit in my gnome garden. Of course after the demonstration we were lead right into the store where you could find anything from miniature terra cotta warriors to tea cups.
Lunch was served on the 3rd floor. It was a buffet style lunch. Although everything I tried was good, I think the best thing I found on the buffet was a potato/mushroom dish. After lunch they took us to the second floor to get a demonstration on how lacquer furniture is made, and of course more time to shop. Tom was late coming back to the bus, so when he got on he told everyone that he had been late because he was ordering the life-size terra cotta warrior with his head. I didn’t believe him for a second, but I think he had some of the other people fooled for a few seconds.
We were finally on our way to the actual Terra Cotta Warrior museum. After a long walk from where we parked our bus, we made it to the museum site. The Terra Cotta Warriors were discovered by farmers digging for a well. The warrior sculptures depict the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, and is a form a funerary art buried with emperor and whose purpose was to protect him in the afterlife. We first watched the worst museum movie ever. The movie was a circular room with 10 screens all playing different video segments. Half of the projectors were either broke, out of focus, or weren’t able to light the screen properly. You can only stand in the room, and the movie itself wasn’t near as informative as I thought it could be. It felt like there were way too many long periods of no talking and just crappy video. When the movie was over we met our tour guide and she briefed us on some of the things we should look at when we visit the pits. The pits are the actual archaeological dig sites where they are still uncovering the army. About 1000 soldiers (and some horses and chariots) have been pieced back together, but it is estimated that there are more than 7000 soldiers and 500 horses. It is truly an amazing archaeological find and I feel privileged to have been able to see it first hand.
It was about an hour bus ride back to our hotel and we were all feeling exhausted. Dinner was not included in today’s itinerary and our tour guide also suggested that we go to a nearby grocery store to pick up items for lunch tomorrow since we would be hiking and not stopping anywhere for lunch. It was after 7:00 by the time we headed to the grocery store and once again we were surprised at how busy and hot it was in the store. Leah and I roamed around looking for something, but it was really difficult to find much of anything that we recognized or interested us. We defaulted to funky flavor potato chips, dried fruit, and some pound cake type items. We got back to the hotel after 8:00p.m. and was scoped out places to eat in the hotel, but they were closed so we just decided to go to bed as it had been yet another long, amazing, exhausting day. I think I might need a vacation from the vacation when I get home!
