After arriving in Xian and settling into the extremely difficult to find hotel, we were pretty excited to be off the train and just laying in a bed. We got up early the next morning though and headed to see the very famous Terracotta Warriors just outside Xian. We hit it first thing in the morning before the bus-loads of tourists get up and swamp the place, making it too hard to even snap a picture. Funny how we try to avoid the tourists, as if we were anything less.
I’d classify the Warriors as possibly the 8th wonder of the world. Unbelievable detail and scope. Over 8,000 life-size warriors, horses, chariots, weapons, etc were found buried in Xian by a farmer digging for a water well. My cousin Jason Coomes would have enjoyed that dig Every warrior is unique. Their facial expressions, hair, weapons, decoration, armor, etc, is all individual. The King at that time wanted an army surrounding his tomb and seeing him into the after-life, and after all that work, he buried them all around his tomb, sheesh. Hard to believe the influence, power and money a King could command I guess. It’s a must see. We snapped a 100 pictures surely, and were lucky enough to get them before the thousands of other tourists rolled in. I believe some 25,000 people visited it the day we were there and the site is big, but not that big. Former President Clinton was lucky enough to get to scale down into the dig and have his picture beside a warrior, unfortunately ours were from a different view, but awe filled none-the-less. There’s not too much in Xian otherwise, it’s famous for the warriors and it’s also a damn big city, some 8,000,000+ I believe. Christina and I did partake in a massive German styled but Chinese buffet restaurant twice, Chinese girls dressed up like German beer maids, odd and funny. They served beer by the mini-kegs at your table. Christina proved herself worthy and crushed her fair share of liters. Atta-girl, she hasn’t lost a step.
We hopped a plane and headed for Chengdu (pronounced like it looks). Christina was stoked to check out the Giant Panda reserve and research center. We again got up bright and early and snagged a taxi to the park. The pictures tell it all, they all look like teddy bears and they’re pretty clever, goofy, and lazy, just like a bear should be. They are not imposing, more characters than fearsome predators, after all, they only pretty much each bamboo and some fruits, but mostly bamboo. They were only active for just a few short hours in the morning when it was cool and they could get some breakfast and then play around, then it was too hot and time to head inside to the A/C and became much more difficult to see them. They are obviously an endangered species and found only naturally in very few places in China, where they were once abundant. The baby/toddlers were by far the most enjoyable to watch, as they pretty much hammed it up, wrestled, splashed and posed for the cameras. We were also treated to a very rare species called the Red Panda, which looked like a cross between a fox, panda, and raccoon. It was a beautiful animal with a brilliant red fur coat, about the size of a really really big raccoon, but had the paws and snout of a panda, super interesting. Outside of the pandas, Chengdu was another massive city, 6,000,000+, pretty clean and well planned, but busy busy none the less. Christina and I did dominate a local muslim noodle shop about 5 times. Grubbing on dishes of fresh pulled noodles and veggies for about $1 a massive plate, along with local cold beers. They were indeed the best noodles ever. We also treated ourselves to the first tex-mex we’ve had in a long long time, although it was a little lacking, we had a fun time eating tortilla chips and drinking Corona. Don’t worry, we’re walking off all the beer calories more than enough, we get some serious walking/exploring in just about daily.
Next stop- Sanya, the “Hawaii of China”.
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