The Infamous Terracotta Warriors
Sunday, March 18th, 2007Well, I’m guessing you can guess what we did today. That’s right, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors! You can find the replicas all over China but going to see them was pretty cool. It’s almost a little eerie with all those warriors and what not but at the same time, it’s quite breath-taking. I can’t even imagine being a part of such a huge project. The only thing that I didn’t really know is that the rows and rows of soldiers are actually reconstructed because most of them were destroyed during some invasion way back in the day. I’m kind of torn between whether they should have left more of it as ruins or whether it looks better with all the reconstructed soldiers. It’s kind of the same with the wall… somebody was telling us that the places that they didn’t fix up actually look really nice now but are hard to get to. I guess it’s always a fine balance whether to create an image of what it would have looked like in the past or to leave it as a discovered treasure.
Ummm, other than that, we didn’t do much today. The Terracotta Warriors place is a HUGE complex so we were there for quite a while… not to mention that we had to stop at a shopping place… which happened to be a place where they make replica soldiers. It wasn’t actually that bad this time because we didn’t have to sit through a really long lecture and it was neat to see them making the replica soldiers. We also went to a little museum in the town just outside where the Warriors were dug up… it was a really small museum so that took almost no time at all.
Now we are back at the hostel with our 2 new American friends hogging up all the computers right now. I think John and I are going to call it a night and just chill here tonight.
Oh, I just wanted to mention: Mom, I must be your daughter because I had the biggest urge for roasted chestnuts (which are SUPER cheap here)… and now, my fingers are permenantly a brownish-yellow from breaking chestnut shells and eating them like Simon and I eat blueberries (in a mad frenzy). I may have to return to the Muslim quarter to pick me up another bag… hehe.
Ummmm, I think that’s all for now… our train to Chengdu is tomorrow night but we plan to practice our bartering skills at the market tomorrow before we go. See ya!
cheng.ev