Sunday, January 23, 2011

Xi'an


We are off on our adventures around China and SE Asia for the Chinese New Year holiday. We will try to blog along the way as we have Internet access. First stop: Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. Xi'an is one of the four great ancient capitals of China.

We bundled up and biked in tandem around the city wall which was all decorated for the Chinese New Year.
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Watched the water fountain show at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Walked around down town near the bell & drum towers & Muslim quarter.
And best of all, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors. Chip came here five years ago, and ever since I saw his photos I have been intrigued by the emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who built an army of 8000+ to protect him in the afterlife. The clay warriors likely built around 210 BC were only recently discovered in 1974 and archaeologists have been excavating since.


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1 comment:

  1. kpeifferFebruary 16, 2011 at 10:01 AM

    wow, those Terracotta Warriors really were incredible! it looked like some of them were beheaded? i wonder what the emperor expected to find in the afterlife if he thought he would need 8,000 warriors to protect him!
    why did China have 4 great ancient capitals? did they serve different purposes, like cultural, political, financial, etc.? or was the country more divided then, and those were the capitals of the different sections? (sorry, i'm sure i'm exposing my ignorance here, but i was curious.)
    - Bekah

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