Final day - Xi'an Terra Cotta warriors

The streets of Xi'an. Not in the small Muslim quarter tangle of streets, but out on the broad boulevard. People and more people.


We are on our way to the Terra Cotta warriors, about 40 minutes outside of the walled city of Xi'an. After about 15 minutes on the road, the traffic stops. Drivers, passengers all around us immediately turn off their cars and get out. Our guide took the opportunity for a smoke and walked way ahead. We completely lost track of him. After about 10 minutes, he returned. Soon thereafter the traffic started rolling like normal. No slow pace, just on the road again. Weird. This is China. Don't know what stopped us.
This is the Emperor Qin Shihuang, (meaning the First Emperor of Qin, which was the first Emperor of China) who came to the position at age 13. He was born as Ying Zheng, but changed his name after he conquered six states and established the first united centrally-ruled feudal country. It was after this unification that he named himself Qin Shihuang. He began building his mausoleum soon after he gained the throne as King of the Qin State at age 13. The Mausoleum, warriors, horses were still not completed at his death at age 51, 210 B.C. It is said that over 700,000 workers were involved in the building of his tomb, (covering an area of 56.25 square kilometers) which includes an underground palace, inner and outer city walls, the terra-cotta warriors and horses, vaults of stone armor and helmets, vaults of terra-cotta acrobatic figures, vaults of civil officials, rare birds and unfamiliar animals, bronze water birds, a bronze crane, two 3/4 size bronze chariots and horses. I wish I could write a book to you on all the information about the excavation of these warriors and their history. It is facsinating and still continuing. Qin Shihuang was truly the first to unite China, established a feudal system, started county administrations, standardized weights, money, Chinese characters, started the "Great Wall" and "highways". There were some cruel aspects of his rule as well, but I will leave those for you to discover!
The first of 3 excavations that we saw. Many more are known of but not being excavated until better tools and facilities can be used to preserve them.
It is absolutely stunning and overwhelming, the number of soldiers in just this one area. All faces are unique.
The soldiers are facing east, prepared for battle to protect from the enemy who would be approaching from this direction.


Storey catching the spirit of the soldiers!
Some close ups of the gorgeous soldiers. This is a kneeling archer. There are infantrymen, archers, standing and kneeling, calvary, . . . .
everything one would need to be protected from their enemies in the after life!
This is how the warriors were originally found, fully painted. That is why they are waiting on better technology before unearthing the rest. The paint just disappears when meeting with the air.
An extraordinary, moving experience to see this grandeur of accomplishment by humankind in 200 B.C. What are we leaving?
We are back in Xi'an, and while the others are resting at the Sofitel, Paige, Ridley and I adventure out to bike on the wall surrounding Xi'an. The old city is completely walled in by a tremendous structure. We grab a pedicab and squeeze in.

The south gate of the wall.
Being the holiday week, the wall was very busy and all the bikes were taken. We decided to walk to one of the corners. These are guard towers posted frequently along the wall. The air was so bad this day that we felt it was probably better not to be exerting ourselves anymore than necessary.
Heading back to the hotel in another pedicab with Ridley literally hanging off the side the whole way.
While we were gone Storey went to the pool and jumped in in her clothes, so happy to be in a pool! It was beautiful.
Paige and Grammy at the pool. Paige then went and worked out in the exercize room. Ahh, the little amenities. (Looks like Grammy did a little shopping while we were gone!)
We stayed in and went to the buffet at the Sofitel restaurant that was a feast beyond measure. Everything one could desire from any part of the world: Japan, China, Arab,Western - German, French, Scandanavian, America. We had some happy campers at the dinner table! Home via plane the next day. Nancy, Ridley and I went to the Muslim quarter one more time to look around before taking off in the afternoon. Quite an easy experience hopping on a plane. It seemed quite luxurious after our train adventures. We were back to Shanghai in no time!

Well, I have actually completed our trip. Many weeks and adventures later we have caught up! It is Halloween today. Look for girls in costumes next!

Good bye Grandma Lu

Mom leaving Changle Lu, House #5, happily on her way back to the States! She has spent 6 weeks here, and was an incredible help and support while Ridley was away. She has also been a great sport as we whiskey her and Nancy off on our wild adventure before they had time to adjust to China time. We have been going, going, going.Saying good-bye as she heads toward security, happy for the business class trip home!
Bye Grammy Lu! We are going to miss you and thank you for all the gifts and fun you gave us! See you on Skype.

Xi'an - Muslim Quarter/Mosque

The skies look blue and sunny in Xi'an, don't they? Weird to look back and see the blue skies since our memory is of the thickest smog we have ever encountered. Our throats, lungs and noses were screaming at us the entire time we were in this city.

This is our early morning arrival at the Xi'an train station. More than hordes of people. This was the day before the National Holiday, October 1 (like our 4th of July). It is one of the two times during the year where almost every Chinese person returns home for a week to see their families. We were enjoying being in the middle of it all. Our guide, Jarrod, met us at the station, and got us into two taxis that whisked us to. . . . .aaaaahhhh. . . . the Sofitel. A beautiful hotel with all the western amenities which was particularly attractive to mom and Nancy. We were happy to be there as the rest of our stay in Xi'an wasn't a dream. Other than the smog, again, deceivingly absent in this photo, we had quite an adventure with our guide. Jarrod would run off at every opportunity for a smoke, stop his explanations to us to take phone calls that went on and on, spoke quickly and completely incomprehensibly, and just didn't plan anything for us beyond our immediate requests. There was a museum in town we wanted to see and we didn't know you had to reserve tickets in advance. He did not do that for us and never let us know until the day of. He took us to eat at the dirtiest, grungiest restaurant any of us had ever seen, and his English being so poor he couldn't even translate the food options for us. We asked him for vegetables, seemingly the most benign choice, and he didn't know how to translate that! Our whole experience in Xi'an was unfortunately colored by our experience with Jarrod. When I wrote the agency after the trip letting them know of our disappointment, they said we did not have a guide named Jarrod, our guide was Betty. After many emails back and forth and our insistence that we indeed were with Jarrod for 2 days, it finally was discovered that because it was the National Holiday, our guide, Betty, had pawned us off to Jarrod-we-don't-know-who for our trip. We received a page long letter of apology from Betty, too little, too late.

Tour guide aside, there are some fascinating parts of Xi'an, and the Terra Cotta soldiers are not to be missed.
After dropping our bags and Mama Lu at the hotel, we headed off to the Muslim quarter which was full of good sights, sounds and smells.
Beautiful dried fruits, nuts, spices adorned the streets.


Some kind of wild looking bread that I would have loved to try, but no one slowed down long enough for me to grab one!

We made our way through the packed streets and market place to the Great Mosque, hidden back in the tangle of lanes. It is one of the largest mosques in the country, and I believe the only one that has the Chinese architectural influence on its buildings.



Lots of gardens, courtyards and anex rooms to the side as we walked through. It is still very much a working mosque. Stunning.


The Bell Tower in old Xi'an.
There is a large square inbetween the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. We were taking a little rest, but there is no rest for the Westerner. People began lining up to get pictures with and of Paige and Ridley. Storey and I were off on another part of the square. . . . .
flying kites! The Bell and Drum Tower hotel behind Storey (for the Walters to see!).



More enticing street food that was completely unknown to us. (Of course our translator/guide was not helping us at all in figuring this out!)
Mmmm, dried kiwi. If only I had dared to try one! The smog mist a little more evident in these photos.
For all my early tour guide griping, the Muslim quarter is facsinating and really fun to walk around in. Our first day in Xi'an. Off to the soldiers tomorrow!

Post Great Wall

Hint for the previous "find Waldo" site: if you click on the picture and enlarge it, it is a lot easier to spot the girls.

On our way back to Beijing proper, (as we were still in Beijing out at the wall, Beijing being 6,000 square miles!), we stopped at a cloissonne factory. They get in all these extra "tours" of things we might want to see. This was actually very interesting to see all the steps and work involved in making a piece of cloisonne. Like the silk factory, we wondered how the quantity of goods gets made. It is a long 7 to 9 step process that requires a lot of skill along the way. We enjoyed learning, viewing and dining in this huge facility!It wore us out! A little respite before more touring.
We went to see the Olympic facilities. It was the first day they were opened to the public as the ParaOlympics had just ended. The streets were packed and you had to walk miles to get over to the buildings and surrounding Olympic Village. We opted to take pictures from afar. We had done our walking and climbing for the day!
Mom in front of the official time piece.
Just plain cool architecture. So much more money than is necessary is spent to build a piece of art rather than just a utilitarian building. This is particularly true in Shanghai where the buildings stun you in their unique presence that contribute to making the entire city a piece of art, especially at night when it all lights up.

Paige and Nancy. Great buds on this trip.
The Bird's Nest with a bit of the water cube trying to sneak into the picture on the left. Incredibly grand, inspiring buildings. Of course the bird's nest, water cube and other Olympic buildings all relate to the Chinese symbols of water, earth, fire, etc. in the way they are situated and what they are called. Everything has, at the least, a double meaning.


Walking around a beautiful lake in Beijing, surrounded by shops, restaurants, pedicabs and . . . .


bar upon bar upon bar, this one particularly decked out with individual water pipes! We will miss the real action once night falls.
We ended our day in Beijing at the train station with millions of other travelers. Getting to this room was a remarkable feat as we navigated hordes of people all squeezing into the smallest of openings, elbowing, pushing, shoving, all while being overladen with luggage. There is no rancor or ill will in any of the forward movement, just each man for himself. The girls comported themselves with bravery, confidence and sheer determination to follow the fast walking Neo to our waiting room. It was a wonderful experience of China on the move.
Grammy Lu found a seat amongst some friends. . . .
and we shared seats and played UNO until the doors opened for the deluge. We were getting on the "deluxe soft sleeper", a train with two bunks per room, each with its own bathroom and closet - it even had tv's. We thought this was the high life. We soon found out that even the best description may not provide all the details. This was a much older train, and while it had the in-cabin amenities, the beds were hard, hard, hard. The tv was only in Chinese, except for the chanel that showed western movies which had no sound at all. The train was so old and rickety that all night long it moved in ways one would never expect it to move and remain on the tracks! A long night to Xi'an.