Saturday 3rd December

Pit 1

Pit 3
Pit 2

I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 7.30am after what was probably the worst night’s sleep I have had since I arrived in China. It was a combination of having the hardest pillows I have ever seen and me still feeling ill with a cough, sore throat and cold, added with the fact that there was a light shining through my window directly onto my pillow. I felt so tired but needed to get up and ready to meet Sam for breakfast. We had the same waitress as the night before and ordered a cooked breakfast to start the day and were advised by staff to wrap up with lots of layers as it was going to be a cold day. At 9am we met the tour guide in reception and 27 of us piled onto the bus. 15 minutes into the journey the tour guide picked up her microphone and shouted at one of the guys who had fallen asleep to wake up. The tour guides name was Jaja and told us that her English name was Lady Jaja which had us all laughing, then she said that she was very single and raised her eyebrows at Sam which was hilarious as Sam is gay. The tour guide was very loud and over the top and Sam and I were in stitches saying that it was like the tv programme coach trip when she asked us all to introduce ourselves. It made the 90 minute bus drive go very quickly.

Our first stop was at the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s tomb which was a complete waste of time, all there was too see was a big mountain which you couldn’t climb or go round, just look at from a viewing deck. The tomb is underground surrounded by a moat of mercury so no one knows what’s in there as it is too dangerous to open up the tomb (I’d like to know HOW they know it’s a moat of mercury, if that’s the case). We walked 5 minutes from the bus to the viewing deck, were given a bit of information on the tomb and then 5mins to look around then back to the bus. Just something to pad out the tour and I suppose as Sam pointed out, to get an idea of how far away (1.5km) the tomb was from the terracotta warriors.

We got back on the bus and drove 3minutes to where the terracotta warriors were and had to pass through two security gates, providing our ticket and form of I.D. at each one. The terracotta warriors are found in 3 pits and our tour guide said it was best to start with the least impressive first, so we started at pit 2. Pit 2 had 2000 terracotta warriors discovered in it by farmers digging a well in 1974. The story goes that the Emperor was so paranoid that he had workers dig this pit to put the army of warriors in, each facing the east, to protect him in the after life. The emperor then didn’t want anyone to know where his tomb was so while the workers were in the pits, he had them sealed with the workers still inside, like an underground bunker. Unfortunately over the years earthquakes have caused the ceiling of the pits to collapse and shattered all but 5 of the terracotta warriors in pit 2. The remaining 5 terracotta warriors are on display in glass cases round the sides of pit 2 for you to see. If I am honest, when I saw pit 2 I thought to myself “I have paid to come and see this?!” It was highly disappointing after the photos that I had seen.

The tour guide then took us through to pit 3, a much smaller pit but with 658 in tact terracotta warriors and horses, it was much better to see and there were much better photo opportunities. This was a bit more like it! We then walked round to pit 1 which looked the size of an air hanger and was much more impressive. This was more like what I had imagined and you could see rows upon rows of the 6000 terracotta warriors that were in this pit. Each Terracotta warrior was said to have a different face and detailing, making each warrior unique. It was amazing to see really as to how that was possible, I would have hated to have been the person with that job to check each one! The tour guide said that the area was still being excavated and in 40-60 years there could be far more pits uncovered. I am not quite sure as to why the whole area hasn’t been checked yet as you would think that they would have started looking for the rest straight away?

From entering pit 2 until we had come out of pit 1 took 2 hours and our tour guide informed us that it was now time to go to the cinema to watch a 20minute film about the terracotta warriors, which was interesting. The cinema was inside a big shop selling you all sorts of touristy terracotta warrior things, at extortionate prices. After the film was finished it was 2.30pm and our tour guide announced that it was lunch time and we were off to a restaurant near the entrance that had won awards for it’s food. On our way she stopped Sam and I and said that she had a gift for me and gave me a black terracotta warrior miniature statue. I felt really touched by that but it didn’t look like she had given anyone else one so Sam kept joking that it was full of cocaine and someone was going to stop me at Beijing airport and ask for it back!

We got to the restaurant and the room was freezing, the food was lukewarm and really wasn’t that nice, Sam and I barely ate anything. I am curious as to what kinds of awards they may have won. After lunch we piled back on the bus and headed back to the hostel.

We arrived back at the hostel at 5pm and a few of us went to the cafe for a coffee (mango juice for me, everyone was baffled by the fact that I am from England but don’t like tea or coffee). Then Sam and I decided to explore a bit and find somewhere for dinner as we were both quite hungry by this point. We wandered the streets for a while and stumbled upon what looked like a restaurant. We were escorted to the lifts and taken to the fourth floor, then entered the poshest looking restaurant I have seen in China. We got a bit giddy and were taking photos of us with the ipad menu and getting weird looks from the staff so we said that it was our anniversary and we wanted to remember every moment, which we were in fits of giggles over, but it did get us free drinks! At one point Sam even said to me “take a picture of me buttering the bread!” which at the time seemed the natural thing to do, but afterwards seemed a really bizarre thing to be taking a photo of! The food was amazing, we both had a beef steak with peppercorn sauce and it was delicious. It was one of those restaurants where the portions aren’t very big but they are well presented and the food is to a high standard and we both agreed that it was the best meal we have had in a long while. We had such a nice meal chatting away and giggling about pretending it was our 5^th anniversary, it was such a fun meal. We looked at desserts but couldn’t really justify spending that much on ice cream so we paid and left and went to McDonald's across the road for a mcflurry! We then wandered round Xi’an centre for a bit and then returned to the hostel to look at my photos from what turned out to be an amazingly fun day.

Pit 2 Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628295187183/

Pit 3 Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628295225033/

Pit 1 Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628295276709/