Friday, June 17
Terracotta Warriors
With our guide, Helen, and Mr. Shen at the wheel, we took off for the Warriors this morning. Hmmm, ‘take off’ would have been much safer than navigating the roads of Xi’an. They are crazy drivers here. Seriously crazy. But it all seems to work out. We noticed that no one wears helmets on the scooters. Helen did say that the scooters cause a lot of the accidents. Bad as the car/van drivers are about following the traffic rules, apparently the scooter drivers are worse. Dave decided that the motto must be—Bigger Rules!
Now for the Warriors. Amazing! More than 2,000 years old, and you can still see the individual hairs on their heads, wrinkles in their sleeves, and some are even smiling—or they look like they're smiling. Molly got some great shots—her camera zoomed in farther than anyone else’s. Emperor Qin decided (at the age of 13) that he wanted a lot (really lot!) of soldiers to protect him in his afterlife. He started having them made—and 38 years later, he died and they buried him nearby. 700,000 people worked on them. It took about 3 months to make one. Every one of them has a different face. They believe there are 400 burial pits around his mausoleum. (good thing for spell correct) Their bodies are hollow. So far, only 1 statue has been found completely intact. He’s a kneeling archer. Some of them looked liked they had fallen over drunk after a big party. But they were smiling.
Helen told us that the men’s hair style showed their rank. Generals have a ‘butterfly’ hairdo. And what they call a “General’s Belly”. She laughed and said that we call it a beer belly. That’s when Dad decided he had a General’s Belly—sounded better.
We had lunch at a great local Chinese restaurant. Nothing like the Chinese food anywhere else in the world. After lunch we headed to the City Wall. It’s 600 years old and they used sticky rice while they were building it. I didn’t quite get just how they used it, but I guess if the wall is standing 600 years later, it must have been a good idea. We took a little open vehicle and drove along it. So dang hot. 36*C, but a light wind and humidity is under 65%. Okay. Still hot and we were very happy not to be walking or riding a bike.
Got back to the hotel around 3 and had the rest of the day to ourselves. First thing we all did—hit the swimming pool! So refreshing after the heat. These photos are from Dad and Molly.
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Doctoring a warrior |
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Kneeling archer--the only one found intact, so far |
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General Lyle? |
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Backside of the butterfly hairdo |
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Close up of the intricate carving on each soldier |
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Okay, they sort of look like they all got a bump on the head? |
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Color is still there |
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The ICU of the Warrior hospital |
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Terracotta Warriors |
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Lots of Warriors |
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John Travolta--Stayin' Alive?? |
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City Wall, Xi'an |
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Xi'an city wall--8 miles around it |
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The white hat group and Helen our guide, on the Xi'an city wall |
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