Today we went to one of the top places on our list- the Terracotta Warriors found near Xi’an, China.
We left a little early from our hotel to get to The Terracotta Warriors. It’s a good thing we did as we were one of the first groups into the museum. When we left after our visit, there was a long line of folks waiting to enter. This museum sells 70,000 tickets every day of the year and today was a holiday so even more families were visiting. It was a mad crush. People were shoving each other, putting cameras/phones in front of others and we were all smashed together. Groups were going different directions and some groups would all stay together as one entity so when they moved, everyone else had to get out of their way or get run over. Needless to say, I did not get to enjoy it as much as I wanted. As a matter of fact I didn’t even get to see one of the highlights of the museum since I couldn’t stand the crush any longer and left the building.
The Terracotta warriors were still amazing. Each warrior had a different face & hair design and some did not even have Asian features. Originally there were colors on the faces and clothing of the statues but when the statues were exposed to air the color quickly muted into the color of the terracotta. They put plastic wrap on some of the warriors to protect & preserve the coloring but it was very distressing to see plastic wrap on the lifelike faces.
Our lunch spot had a short presentation/sales pitch for lacquered furniture and for silk embroidery. The silk embroidery was amazing.
After the Terracotta Warriors and lunch, we visited the Xi’an city wall. It is one of the only city walls still in existence. Most of the other older cities in China had walls to protect them but these old walls were demolished and/or the wall materials were reused to make something different.
In the evening we went to a dinner and show.
