Hi all,
Last night Brenton, Max, Tina, Emma, Sam and I headed back to the Muslim Street area at night while the rest of the group went to a dumpling show.
We caught the bus by ourselves and enjoyed the buildings and area we had seen earlier in the day all lit up. We also tried lots of different local snacks. I had some beautiful frozen yoghurt and a rice cake made of sticky rice and sugar - it was delicious!
Then we got to the street itself and it was about ten times busier than during the day. It was crazy!! Again I just walked along taking it all in. We tried lots of different foods. I had a magnificent mango smoothie juice type thing that had frozen mango up the top and was absolutely amazing. Then we had some noodles and Brenton tried the kebabs (my stomach and I weren't brave enough!).
At about 9pm I started to feel exhausted and all the crowds, smells and loud noises got a bit much. I caught a taxi back to the hotel which cost me $2 Australian and went to sleep about 10pm. I got my first uninterrupted night of sleep for the trip and am feeling a bit better today.
Today we got up and first went to the Tangbo Art Museum. The guide showed us some different paintings, sculptures and shadow puppets made of animal hide. Some of them were really beautiful.
Then we sat down in a classroom and she gave us a Chinese calligraphy lesson.
We used a paintbrush made from goat hair and wrote on rice paper made from bamboo fibres. We learned that there are eight symbols in the Chinese alphabet and these make up the characters we see.
All of us had a go at writing two words - "forever" ("yong") and "love" ("aì"). I think mine look ok so I have kept them! It was pretty tricky getting the manoeuvre and pressure right with the brush. Our teacher told us that the most complicated character to write is a name of a particular type of noodle that requires 54 brush strokes in total!
Then we were back on the bus and on our way to the Terracotta Warriors. This is one of the things I was looking forward to the most on this trip. I've wanted to come here ever since I watched 'The Amazing Race' as a kid and they came here in 2004 during season 6.
In 1974, there was a really bad drought and farmers were instructed to create an irrigation system by digging. Ten farmers were digging north east of Xi'an and discovered some Terracotta Warriors. Some of these were excavated and analysed and they were found to be the warriors that were buried with Qin Shi Huang.
Qin Shi Huang was the first person to conquer and unify China and he did so back in 221 BC, subsequently becoming the first emperor of China. He is considered China's greatest emperor despite a lot of people dying in the process of him taking control. While he was alive he ordered 720,000 workers to build him a mausoleum. This took 38 years and cost 1/3 of the country's revenue every year to build. The tomb is the largest in the world at 56 square kilometres and consisted of an underground palace, treasures, slaves, rare animals and an army of what is estimated to be up to 8000 Terracotta Warriors with 40,000 weapons, 400 chariots and 1600 horses.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s the warriors were excavated at a rate of about 50 warriors per week, but not much care was taken to preserve the coloured paint and the sculptures themselves. Nowadays, only one is excavated per week because a lot more care is taken. Apparently the excavation could take another 100 years!
We had a quick noodle lunch and then went in. First of all we went to pit two, which at some point an enemy attacked and as a result lots of the terracotta sculptures are damaged. This was the pit for the warriors with horses. We got to see a few up close in cases here too. I stared at them in awe - every one has a different facial expression, body shape etc. The bodies are made with a few different moulds but the faces are all truly unique.
Next we went to pit three which is quite small and is where the generals were buried. All of the warriors were buried inside huts that were covered with dirt/earth.
We passed what would have been pit four, but this is just an empty chamber because Qin Shi Huang died unexpectedly at 49 before the whole complex was finished.
We had saved the best for last - pit one. This is the largest pit and probably the one you've seen on postcards or TV. It literally took my breath away and it was one of those surreal moments where you realise you're somewhere you've wanted to come for a very long time.
We walked along the side taking in the unique warriors and the restoration workshop where they are continually piecing together new warriors. Then we got to the end and the crowds were huge. Luckily for us (we didn't know this at the time), a VIP celebrity was arriving so the police started to clear the end out. We played the "dumb tourist" card for a couple of minutes and were able to take pictures and look around with no one next to us. It was amazing and very lucky!!
We had an ice cream and walked back to the bus. Our next stop was at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda which was really pretty and built in the 7th century. It was used to store Buddhist statues and as a watchtower.
Tonight we are on another overnight train, this time for 14 hours to Suzhou. We had a Chinese burger at the station and now we are on board. Initially I was meant to be in a cabin with five locals by myself which I was a bit nervous about. However, I boarded the train with Emma and Sam and with the help of a Chinese message from Howard asking the man in their cabin to swap I managed to swap beds with him. I think what got me over the line was him saying "where from?" me replying "Australia" and him looking at me blankly. I think jumped around like a kangaroo and he went "ohhhhhhhhh Australia!" - his face lit up. Feeling very happy and comfortable now. Emma and I are sitting contented on the bottom bunk writing our blogs/diaries and eating some crisps as she would say!
See you in Suzhou tomorrow!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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