On my way to tai chi this morning,
I spotted this Chinese style Gingerbread House!
Following breakfast we all got on the bus for our ride
to the Museum of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses.
We passed through the Ming dynasty City Wall. It is almost 9 miles around the city and wide enough for two-way chariot traffic to travel the top of it. Most of the wall and guardhouses have been restored. It's lit at night...quite impressive.
Our first rainy day..but the Museum is mostly inside.
The gardens along the path were loaded with iris!
A brief history lesson from The Berlitz China Pocket Guide..."The life-sized infantrymen, archers, officers and their horses symbolically guard the tomb of the first Qin emperor. Well before his eventual death in 210 BC, Qinshi Huangdi conscripted hundreds of thousands of his subjects to construct a suitably impressive tomb. It is said that the workers and supervisors involved in its design and construction were buried alive in the tomb. The novel idea of guarding it with thousands of pottery soldiers was revealed by accident in 1974, when local peasants digging a well created a worldwide sensation. What is believed to be the main tomb of the emperor is situated about 1 mile west of the terracotta soldiers. According to historical stories, a splendid necropolis apparently depicting the whole of China in miniature is centered beneath the 154' high mound. The whole burial site is reputed to cover 22 square miles. The same accounts also say that the ceiling is studded with pearls depicting the night sky and mercury was pumped in mechanically to create images of flowing rivers. Some speculation has it that the emperor was so superstitious and fearful that he had the necropolis built as a decoy and is, in fact, buried somewhere else. However, in order to open up the entire necropolis, 12 villages and about half a dozen factories in the area would have to be relocated." little lone the mercury issue. But on to Building 1.
It absolutely takes your breath away!
The detail is incredible with different expressions,
clothing, hairstyle etc. on each individual warrior.
clothing, hairstyle etc. on each individual warrior.
This is how many of the ditches looked when discovered.
How they have managed to put these back together is beyond me! After an hour of wandering the walkway around this area we moved on to Building 2. This was discovered in 1976 and opened in 1994 and is currently being excavated. It contains the imperial cavalry: 900 soldiers, 116 saddled horses and 356 horses hitched to 89 chariots. The wooden chariots have disintegrated.
Different sections have been excavated. The wooden
roof had collapsed in the depressions above.
Current excavation work.
All of statues were originally painted in bright colors.
Most have oxidized back to the reddish clay color.
or cut ones. We actually had some of both along with
many other side dishes and dessert...buffet style.
Then on to Pit 3, the Command Post with 72 officers in war robes.
After several hours of wandering, we headed to the
small Museum and gift shop.
This 1/2 size bronze chariot was found buried along with
another chariot about a 1/2 mile away from the tomb.
Incredible detail!
What a day so far!! Back in the bus and back to Xi'an and the University where we met up with our families. Each pair was matched up with someone from the university and we went to their homes for dinner. Our family lived on campus in the housing there..a 19 story apartment house. We walked there with the wife, Jessica (Huang Jie). She had been an English teacher for 20 years, teaching middle school students. She had not taught for about 10 years so her English was a little rusty, but we got along just fine. She was very friendly, warm and nervous that we wouldn't have a good time.
Her husband spoke no English but played a mean instrument! He and his group had a performance that night so he was practicing. We had a tour of the apartment - a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom (one which had the washing machine in it), tiny kitchen, sun room with an incredible view from the 17th floor and a living/dining room area. Very nice.
Not long after we got there the doorbell rang and these two students arrived. Originally, Jessica's daughter was going to join us for dinner, but she got tied up at work...so she called her Niece, an English teacher at the University and asked if these students could come over. It took a little while for all of us to get comfortable, but soon we were having a good conversation.
Jessica would roll out the balls of dough into a
perfect circle with a little tiny rolling pin...
then we would add the stuffing and shape.
Mary (Zhou Xiaoxi) in pink and Linda (Liu Dan)
were very skilled at making these dumplings!
Very different techniques, but great end product!
Final step is to boil them...
Then time for the whole family to sit down and enjoy dinner....from left to right....marinated cucumber, Lotus root salad, Garlic greens, peppers and mushroom with egg, stir fried bean sprouts with pepper oil and dumplings. The sauce in the bowls was made up of fresh coriander, dried red pepper seeds and peanut oil. It was eaten family style with chopsticks and no plate so everybody dug in and had a great time. YUMMY!!! The beverage was fruit beer...new to us. Very sparkly but good taste. We had fun conversation and a fair amount of toasting :-).
We moved to the living room for dessert and got a quick photo before the man of the family headed out for his performance. A little more conversation and then we met up with our ride back to the hotel. It was a REALLY fun experience.
