Who Will Watch Over My Tomb?

Saturday, September 10th

We booked a private guide to see the Terracotta Warriors because we thought it would be a lot more meaningful to understand the history and significance from a knowledgable local.  Our guide Rocky, with a driver, picked us up and gave us some background information on Xi'an as we drove to our first destination, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

This is one of the most famous Buddhist pagodas in China, a UNESCO World Heritage site attracting Buddhist worshippers from all over Asia.  It was originally constructed by the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century to house scriptures monk Xuan Zang brought back from India.  It's been rebuilt several times since then, most recently during the Qing Dynasty in Ming Style.  We learned a lot about Buddhism from Rocky and listened to the monks chanting as they performed a religious ceremony.

We were introduced to Happy Buddha and the custom of rubbing his big belly for good luck.  We may be exempt from this luck since we're not Buddhist, but of course we couldn't resist rubbing his belly anyway.  We also got to see the popular water fountain show in the square, which is the largest music fountain show in Asia.

One thing I have noticed in our travels throughout China, is that a lot of the babies don't wear diapers.  They only wear pants with a slit in the crouch leaving everything exposed.  We're trying to figure out how exactly that works before the child is potty-trained, but Rocky assured us that the mom and/or grandma just know when it's time for their kid to go.

I also haven't commented on the bathroom situation yet, which to be honest, hasn't been that bad.  I guess four days on the Inca Trail was good preparation.  But here's a little tip if you ever come to Asia and aren't a fan of squatting... The handicap stalls have western toilets.  Boom!


Then we headed an hour east to the town of Lintong, home to the infamous Terracotta Warriors.  But before going to the museum, Rocky took us to an authentic restaurant popular with the locals.  He helped us order, selecting classic dishes from this region.  We tried the Biangbiang Noodles, arguably the Shaanxi region's most famous dish composed of one long thick noodle in a savory broth of black mushrooms, tomatoes, egg, green onion and garlic. Trying to eat these never ending noodles with chopsticks wasn't so easy, but it was worth the effort.  We also enjoyed the Sizzling Beef with onions and hot peppers and the Ma Hua Xia, a unique dish of deep fried prawns, peppers and wheat flour rods with peppercorns, peanuts, sesame seeds, chili peppers and garlic.  The crispy potato pancake flatbread was really good as well.

After completely stuffing ourselves, it was off to witness the life-size army of soldiers standing guard over the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang, protecting him in the afterlife.  This archaeological goldmine was discovered by local farmers digging a well in 1974 and since then the site has been excavated to unearth 8,000 charioteers, cavalrymen, archers and infantrymen, all unique in height and body shape with different facial features.  2,000 of these warriors have been restored, pieced back together to stand guard.  Rocky explained that it takes four people nine months to complete the puzzle of restoring one warrior.  Each of the warriors were hand painted, but the colored lacquer disappears when exposed to oxygen, so archaeologists re-buried a section of warriors, waiting to excavate until they are able to come up with a method to preserve the color.  It is fascinating to realize how much time and effort it took to create each individual warrior, let alone thousands.  And by the way, prior to this army being created to stand guard over the emperor's tomb, the previous tradition was to bury people alive who were expected to do the same job.  I'd be curious to come back in another forty years to see how the army has multiplied from the excavation.

Rocky took us to the airport and helped us check-in for our flight, which was much appreciated.  We have some time to kill before our 9:25pm flight to Beijing, arriving just after 11pm.  It's going to be a late night but we wanted to travel tonight so we would be able to wake up and start sightseeing on Sunday morning.  We have a lot to see and only three short days in China's capital!