Day Twelve

Today was an eventful day. Jordon and I went site seeing with our translator Art. He is probably one of the coolest people I have met here so far. He has been to America several times and will be heading there soon again, so he has a great understanding of our culture and loves to joke with us. He took us to Xian. Here we saw the Terracotta Soldiers. This is an ancient site where the warriors reflect the likeness of the armies of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. They were discovered by accident in 1974 by farmers who were digging a well. They barely hit the outside corner of the massive site. There are an estimated 8000 warriors, 130 chariots, 520 horses, and 150 Calvary horses. Most of them are still buried because they were originally painted with very bright colors, however when they were uncovered the color would disappear so they have halted uncovering the rest of them until they can find a way to preserve the color. It is really impressive the amount of details that are on figures. They all vary in height, weight, and facial expression. They also have different ranks portrayed as seen by the different types of armor, shoes and hairstyles. Originally, they all had bronze weapons however, these were stolen when the emperor died suddenly and his nation was concurred. They all have empty hands now but several artifacts were found in the pit. It was incredible to see the vast number of figures that were there. They were all made in order to protect the emperor in the afterlife. The emperor was believed to have died young as he was constantly trying to find a potion to make him immortal. After this, we went to eat in a Muslim restaurant where we had lamb dumplings. They were good especially with the really spicy sauce. We tried several of the dishes there; almost all of them were very good. We then toured the wall of Xian; it is one of the few cities with the original wall still intact. The wall was over 1000 years old and was about 45 feet wide! It is incredible how they could build something so massive that long ago. Supper was another incredible meal. As always, we had so many interesting dishes. My favorite one was the Peking Duck. It consisted of duck that was cooked for a whole day then sliced thinly. They served the skin and the meat in this matter. This was placed on a “pancakes” (I would say more like a tortilla shell which is still not accurate), with a hoisin sauce and spring onions. It is one of the best dishes I have had here!