About the same time I agreed to go on the teacher field trip, Abi (another teacher at my school) asked if anyone wanted to go to Xi' an and see the terracotta warriors.....ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? Like she had to ask! I was all in and had the plastic to make it happen. Did I mention that Abi is maybe 23? I am older, I am wiser, I have better plastic :-) So, for the second weekend in a row, I was headed out of town on a grand adventure! I did not do much research prior to going except to check on where we were headed and what the weather would be like. It was supposed to be a good 10 degrees hotter, but the humidity was only 20%, and Shenzhen rocks a good 75-88% ALL THE DAMNED TIME!
Because our flight was leaving at 6:30 OMG BUTT CRACK am, we decided to have a nice late supper, a glass of wine, and then camp out at the airport. The idea was much better sounding in our heads, as the seats at the airport did NOT lend themselves to camping out. The flight would be about 2.5 hours, so I figured I could sleep on the plane.
As we headed through security, the agents started getting all excited about my carry-on and my purse. Having just purchased a battery pack, I did not know that you had to pull it out, with your phone, in China, and put them in a separate tray. Done. Do you have a book in your carry-on? Of course I do, let me pull it out (GOT vol. 3). Done. What is this small vial of liquid (a smidget full of mouthwash to store my tooth in)? I pulled out my tooth and pointed to the bottle. Ok, ok. Done. What is that thing of liquid attached to your purse? I pointed to the 2 oz bottle of hand sanitizer attached to my purse by a rubber holder and asked, "This?" Yes, what is that? I said it was hand sanitizer, I put some on my hands, and rubbed them together. My friend tried to explain in Chinese that is was less then the allowed 3 oz, but the security person was not having that. She was demanding I turn over the whole thing for disposal. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? This is China! People shit, piss, spit, and vomit on the street and NEVER cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze and you want to throw out hard as hell to find hand san? I told her in no uncertain terms I was NOT parting with the container but if she had to, she could empty it. Both Abi and I cried nooooooooooo the whole time she was pouring the precious fluid into the trash bin. I was SO glad I remembered to fill it before we left...NOT!
We both slept on the plane, me better then Abi. When we landed, we were told it was too far to cab it to the hotel, but there was a shuttle that left every 15 minutes or so that would take us very close to our hotel. Apparently, "very close" is a relative term in China and can mean 1-27 blocks. We were close enough we decided, and took our very precious map, with the hotel block circled, and headed off. We finally found OUR hotel, tucked inside an apartment building that proposed to hold another hotel. We did not care, we had found the place.
When we checked in, they verified we had indeed paid for the room up front and in full. It was not the Ritz, but it was China ok, AFTER we informed them that we were not sleeping in a single king bed. It was the first time a Chinese person told Abi that "her mother" appeared upset. Apparently in China, a really white red head is very likely the mother of a very tan Mexican American. Every. single. person. called me her mother. It was not fun, but hell, I am old enough to be her mother so meh. After a long nap and a shower, we had a late lunch at a nice restaurant and then headed to the wall and to the Muslim quarters, which is within the city walls of Xi'an and it was amazing to see. The wall surrounds the city and is likened to the Great Wall. The entire wall is almost 3,000 years old and we were able to go to the top of the wall and walk around (for a very steep price). When we weren't being photobombed, we were able to take some nice pictures. The pics are a bit fuzzy as it was dusk.
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| As crowded as it appears! |
After walking around the top of the wall for a bit, we headed out to the Muslim quarter to eat. The Muslims cook Chinese food, but they do not eat pork, so you can get food that is not pork. The streets were completely crowded and we had to push and shove our way through. We were able to shop, eat, gawk, and sightsee. It was truly and experience.
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| More crowded than it looks! |
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| Goat hooves |
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| wall-O-peppers |
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| Goat carcasses? Don't ask! |
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| sugar pulling |
We got back to the hotel about 10:00pm and were exhausted, but in a good way. We had arranged to have a tour of the warriors the next day, and were told to be waiting for our ride at 8:30. I had only 1 cup of instant coffee in the hotel, so I set out to find sustenance while Abi sat the bench waiting for our ride. I was able to find 2 cans of lukewarm coffee beverages and 2 snickers bars. Throw in a cigarette and it is the breakfast of champions. I think it was about 9:15 we were able to ascertain that the ride was not coming, and the hotel lady put us in a cab and pre-paid the fare. We finally hooked up with our "tour" company, who then picked up an English translator and headed out to the site to meet up with our "tour group". We were told the price of admission included lunch, for which we were VERY apprehensive (see prior post about teacher field trip), and were pleasantly surprised when our first courses arrived and they were delicious. We were given two veggie and meat courses, and because we were soooooooo late meeting everyone, we were told that was it. They were NOT happy when we stayed to finish what little we were given, being 2 of the probable 6 dishes of the entire lunch.
We drove some more, and finally arrived at the site of the excavations. We were given a 20 minute lecture on the history of the sites (having received the same lecture by the other guide on the way to the group), and were sent off alone and given exactly an hour and a half to take it all in. It was a holiday weekend and the place was stuffed to the gills with Chinese tourists. Of all the excavation sites, only 3 were open to the public. Pit 1 contains the warriors, Pit 2, mostly empty, and Pit 3, which contained the "command center". We started with Pit 2, as it was mostly empty, and then headed to Pit 3. We saved Pit 1 for last as that contained the most to see. It was HUGE and mere pictures cannot describe how awe inspiring it truly was.
This is a statue on the way.
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| Pit 2 |
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| Standing archer |
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| Senior Officer |
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| Mid ranking officer |
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| Back of kneeling archer, one of few warriors with color. |
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| Pit 3 |
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| Command central officer meeting |
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| Pit 1 |
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| Warrior "hospital" where figures are reconstructed. |
After "viewing" the pits, between throngs of pushing, shoving, yelling, and photobombing Chinese, we were taken to a separate area that we were told was the emperor's mausoleum. To understand the history of the area, please read a book, it is far to long to talk about here. Let's suffice to say the really wicked, ego maniacal, first emperor of China, who is hailed for uniting all of China and standardizing language and characters, built himself a mausoleum, allegedly, then killed everyone who knew about it, allegedly, and then booby trapped the hell out of it so no-one could get in...allegedly. We were not shown any x-rays or ultrasounds to back this up, we were simply shown a small mountain, told it contained the mausoleum and the remains, and then told to just believe it. Ok. The rock is supposed to be famous, not sure why, but I was not going to be able to take a picture of it without being photobombed by a Chinese person who HAD to take a pic with this allegedly famous rock.
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| "Famous rock" |
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| Map of excavations and mausoleum |
Having so far eaten only a snickers bar and some veggies, (I had a popsicle), we were famished by the time the tour company dropped us back off at the Muslim center in search of more amazing food. I have to say the food in Shenzhen sucks, generally, but the food in Xi'an was China amazing! Abi agreed with me that most Chinese food is better in the US. So, we decided (Ok, I decided because I was cash broke and wanted to use plastic) to find a nice place to sit down, have a cocktail, and some small bar apps. WRONG ANSWER! This is China, that doesn't exist. After wandering about for an hour, we settled on a noodle place. The price was reasonable, the food was excellent, and we would have eaten a dog by then. Full and happy, we headed to the Muslim section to pick up a few more gifts and find dessert. WRONG ANSWER! We only made it a few blocks before the shit hit the fan...literally. I did not make it to a bathroom on time and only stumbled into an ewwwwish bathroom for round 2. Two words. Squat. toilet. WRONG ANSWER! Abi, having experience with this issue in China, set out to find paper towels, wipes, anything...(newspaper), and possibly some new pants. After hitting (literally) 3 toilets, we were able to procure a cab and head back to the hotel. I left a path of destruction in our wake. At the last place, an old Chinese lady shot me a disgusted look. I just smiled and shook my head. Kettle, meet black pot!
Needless to say, I was happy to get back to the hotel after a stop for immodium AD, turns out Abi knows the word for diarrhea in Chinese :-) After a shower, I put my clothes in the washer and went to bed. One of the times I was up in the night, I hung the wet clothes up on the rod.
We were able to get back to Shenzhen at a reasonable hour, but were charged almost triple the cost for the cab from the airport as the driver took us all around the outside of the city before dropping me at home. Not a fan of China here.
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