Xi'an: The City of Foreigners and Warriors

Hello everyone.  Eliza and I are having a great time here in Xi'an.  And its all due to the people we've met.  I say I'm finally getting the hostel experience I've always heard about.  On our first night we were invited to join a group hanging out in the hostel and they contained 2 Brits (bicycling around the world, having left England 8 months ago), two Americans (one a fan of the Erie Otters! that are teaching here in China at a university level), two French women (also here teaching) and 1 Quebecois (teaching).  We spent almost 5 hours just talking with them and connecting with the Americans over all of our favourite shows (Supernatural, Doctor Who, Buffy, Joss Whedon).
The next day we went to lunch with everyone in the Muslim quarter that featured delicious food and amazing little shops.
Here are the pics of the muslim quarter that I took:

This is a butcher's that was very popular if you look you can see there are many people lined up to go inside on the left hand side of the pic.

Peanut Brittle, pounded into submission.

And here are some shots of our hostel.  From the outside it looks like only one building but when you get inside you realize that the hostel bar and reception are a bunch of old buildings linked together through courtyards that have been covered so that there is more space for people to sit inside.  Then we get into the main building where the rooms are and there are three floors of rooms, all clean and comfortable.

The main entrance to the hostel.

The bar/sighting area, the brick parts are all original I believe and then just joined together with the glass ceiling.

Inside the main building looking at the tables set up there and the many floors of rooms.

Finally our room, so far we've been the only two in the room despite it having four beds.

And now on to the Terra Cotta Warriors.  It was a great half day trip out of the city to where the warriors are located.  We did the pits in backwards order, meaning we did 3, 2,  and then finally 1.  On the bus to the warriors we had met a German boy named Ben who travelled with us through the park for about ten minutes before we proceeded to lose each other in the Exhibition Hall.  In the Exhibition Hall they had some more history about Emperor Qin and his very large mausoleum.  He had apparently ordered for live animals to be buried alive with him and they have found holes with a horse skeleton, a container for food and fodder and a terra cotta animal keeper kneeling beside the horse.  Historians believed that Emperor Qin wanted to essentially recreate his living world during his afterlife, therefore anything he used or needed in the living world was provided for him in the afterlife.  We didn't see Ben again until last night when we were back at the hostel watching The Mummy in our room.  One of the Brits asked me if he could take the music off of my itunes and add it to his ipod, whenever he meets someone with a laptop he asks them if he can take their music - its actually a pretty cool idea and I warned him of my music taste (or lack of one) and he said he didn't care since the last person he did this with gave him an entire library of Thrash Metal.
Anyways here are the pics;

As I mentioned Pit 3 was our first stop, since it actually the smallest. All three pits have had buildings constructed around them to preserve the statues inside. 

Pit 3 is thought to be the location of all the commanders preparing for a battle.  There are many high ranking officials found in this Pit as well many guards protecting the entrance ways.

There is also a chariot inside Pit 3 with all 4 horses and their driver.  The chariot itself was actually made out of wood so it has not survived the ages. 

This room is thought to have been where sacrifices were slaughtered and food for the commanders were prepared. 

Next came Pit 2, and my least favourite just because not much of it has been excavated yet. While walking around Pit 2 I noticed another foreigner who had the Canadian flag sewn onto his backpack I was unfortunately too slow to catch them and ask them if they were actually from Canada (we had had two close calls int he morning when we saw people wearing the Canada Goose winter jackets, but they were both Germans and the coats were fakes from Beijing and Shanghai.)

This is the view of Pit 2, under these waves of dirt there are reportedly a lot of horse and chariots but they have yet to be excavated.

This is what is said to beneath those waves, just row upon row of horse and chariot statues.                          

This is probably my favourite part of Pit 2, the Ghost Horse with only its rear end visible and its head still inside the rock face.

This is a kneeling archer that was discovered inside Pit 2.  The way his hands are positioned makes archeologists believe that he once held a bow that was either pilfered or rotted away due to age.

Another shot of Pit 2.

Mid-ranking soldier.  The details on these statues is astounding, there are laces on his shoes and his hair is up in many different braids that you can distinctly make out. 

General - one of 7 found in the Pits.

Horseman and his horse.  I noticed that the horses are very short compared to what we see today but we just assume it is an ancient breed that we do not see as many today.

A standing archer, also with his hands looking to be holding a bow but I actually thought he was a hand fighting soldier just based on his stance but I can see the bow now. 

And last but not least was Pit 1, the largest of the three with over 2,000 soldiers inside.  We found out that when the pits were discovered most if not all the soldiers had actually been destroyed by fires and ancient pilferers that archeologists have been working since the 1970s and continue today to piece back the soldiers using more clay and kilns to repairs the cracks until they are almost invisible.  While we were walking we actually say almost a full horse without its head or legs that was in the process of being pieced back together.

The famous view of the Terra Cotta warriors inside their pit.  It was absolutely amazing to step into this building and see all the history just standing there. 

Horses and the remains of the chariot behind them, only the base and the wheels remain as they were made from stone. 

Another view, each warrior is unique and different from his neighbour, though historians believe that 8 moulds were used and then clay was added to make each person different.

This hole in the wall right near the bottom of the picture is actually a tomb from a few dynasties later, indicating that the people of China had actually forgotten about the warriors and Emperor Qin's mausoleum until it was discovered in the 1970s. 

I liked this guy just standing by himself with no one really around him. 

These are the soldiers that are in the process of being pieced back together. 

After we finished in Pit 1, we decided to make our way back to the bus stop and that's where we ran into the Canadian flag guys again this time we had an opportunity to talk to them and we found out that they were from Calgary.  The four of us rode the bus back to Xi'an together just talking about all of our trips and where we were headed next. 

Four our last day in Xi'an we decided to walk the City Wall that is a historically protected wall. Our hostel is right near the South Gate of the ancient wall so we were able to climb up there and walk around.  The original goal had been to bike the entire distance around but because of the weather today and our lazyiness we only walked to the first corner we saw (.5km away from where we started).

The view looking west along the wall, wasn't a very nice day to get shots of the city but oh well.

Everywhere in Xi'an (and probably China) is getting prepared for the Chinese New Year this coming weekend as evidenced by the red paper lanterns seen all along the wall.

The South Gate guard house.

A view of the buildings right along the inside of the wall.

A park on the outside of the wall at the southwestern corner of the city.

I'm sure on a clearer day you'd be able to see Ancient Xi'an in the background.

The south guard house from below.

Well that's it for Xi'an, our flight is at 12:00pm tomorrow so we are leaving the hostel pretty early.  I had my first encounter with a possible pickpocketer today, when we were out walking I started to notice a tugging on my backpack I turned around and found a guy at my bag with the zipper open.  No one freak though I was quick enough that he didn't get anything but after that encounter I really just wanted to head back to the hostel to avoid anything like that again.