Xi'an...Home of Sunny and the Warriors

Our hostel in Xi'an had just opened a month before our arrival and had received great reviews online. After walking into the hostel we could immediately tell that it was going to be a great experience. Internet was free, our room had a great bathroom, there were comfy lounge areas. The hostel used to be one of the top spas in Xi'an and they had kept all the soothing colors and comfy couches.

Sunny met us at the hostel and was her usual wonderful self. She accompanied us to the train station to help us buy our tickets to Beijing for the following day. Evan had mentioned earlier that day that he was going to ask Sunny if she had any brothers or sisters but remembered that because of the one child law she probably didn't. She actually has 5 brothers and sisters! The law went into effect in 1979, so she's one of the few people our age who have siblings. Sunny put us on the right bus to visit the Terracotta Warriors and we decided to meet up the next day.

On arrival at the Museum of Terracotta Army we watched a movie on a 360 degree screen to get a little history about the warriors. The entire complex makes up the mausoleum of emperor Qin Shihuan, the first emperor of united China. The warriors were placed here to protect the emperor, and they took about 35 years and 700,000 workers to create them all in time for his death in 210 BC

We started at Pit #3 and worked backwards so we could save the largest pit for last. Pit #3 was the headquarters for the army and they found many officers as well as chariot and horses here.



Next we saw Pit #2 which was huge but mostly still being excavated. There were some individual warriors that were on display.



While Evan was getting a closer look at the warriors on display, I was enjoying the vast pit until an older Chinese lady next to me decided that she needed to clear her throat and spit a hawker into the pit. Spitting is not considered gross over here, but it was here...A World Heritage Site! I was already disgusted by the constant sound of people clearing their throats (which grosses me out more than the actual spitting), but had dealt with it to this point. This time I couldn't help but give this lady a dirty look.

After pointing out the culprit to Evan, we moved on to Pit #1. This was a monster pit and about half of it has been excavated. It is the size of a giant airline hanger and housed the great battle formation of cavalry, infantrymen and charioteers. We were blown away by the scale of everything and they have barely scratched the surface of what's still buried.







The next morning we woke up to rain, so instead of exploring we decided to relax. Sunny met us for lunch and we went to a really great restaurant for duck close to her university. Then she walked us back to the City Wall where we said our goodbyes. Thanks Sunny, you were a great guide and we're so glad we met you!



We had the wall to ourselves since the rain scared everyone else away.





We enjoyed our brief stay in Xi'an and hopped an overnight train to Beijing. We were lucky and bought tickets for the Z train where all seats were "soft sleeper." This meant that we only had to share a room with 2 other people and it had a door. The train was a lot quieter and we both slept much better than our train from Shanghai. Even better, there wasn't an old lady staring at me for the whole trip!