Xi'an. Terra Cotta Warriors.

Got a wake up call at 7:30am. Man, they start early on these tours. I'm pretty excited today because we are going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Some Chinese farmer was digging a well or something in the late 70's and found a stone head in his field. As he kept digging, he found more and more stone warriors. They were sealed in a tomb for the first Emperor of China, Chun Chee Wong. He united China when it consisted of many warring states and errected (or rather joined existing parts of) the Great Wall. All in all, a big deal.

So, after a buffet breakfast, we headed to the place where they make the Terra Cotta souvenirs. I spent $80 CAD on souvenirs there, which wasn't really worth it, but seemed to make sense to me at the time.

At the souvenir factory, my aunt and I posing with a replica.

I talked the replica into letting me try on his armour. It's good fit, no?

Left the souvenir factory and here we are, at the Royal Bathing Grounds (or something to that effect).

It's a pretty elaborate get-up for a bath tub, but that was Chinese royalty for you. Not sure who the naked chick is.

Ok, finally, we are at the Terra Cotta Warriors site. No more nude statues of women, no more souvenir shops, it's the real deal this time.

Aw crap. We got stuck watching some introductory movie about how the original site of the warrior statues got ransacked and burned. Cool theatre, but let's get on with it already.

This is it. I'm standing at the edge of an enormous pit filled with stone warriors. Took thousands of slaves 40 years to make them all. Each warrior has a unique face and uniform. Insane.

This is just one of the pits. There are three of them (the third one is still being excavated) and they are fucking huge. There are infantry, horses, cavalry, everything that a real army would have had in those days. And they were all in proper formation.

My aunt and uncle told me that when a Chinese Emperor died, they would seal 4,000 young girls and 4,000 young boys in the tomb to keep the emperor company.

But when they finally made the connection between this practice and the sharp decline in demand for kid's clothes immediately afterwards, they switched to making stone soldiers instead. Besides, I'd be more scared of one of these things than I would be of a dead 6 year old.

As you can see, we're not supposed to take photos here. But the guard to visitor ratio is like 1:400, so we just all snapped away.

An ancient face. These buggers were tall back then. Each statue was close to six feet in height. (click the photo to see a movie clip)

A glimpse into the Chinese lifestyle. People seem to love hanging out on the street. They just bring their own folding chairs or do the Chinaman squat. You'll see more of this as we go along.

Most people on the tour found this repulsive and brutish, but I thought it was great. What are you supposed to do if you're poor, but want to hang out with your friends? It's either this or develop trailer parks like they have in the States.