Xmas in Xi'an

We awoke early Christmas morning to sunlight streaming into our warm four star hotel room. As it had been quite some time since we'd seen the old boy, we laid abed for a spell soaking up his ultraviolet goodness. Our gift to ourselves this year was a trip to the see the Terracotta Army of Xi'an, a spectacular collection of life sized soldiers buried as funerary art for the emperor Qin over two thousand years ago. The idea was that he would need an army to protect and fight for him in the afterlife.

We layered up to combat the subzero temperature outside and walked fifteen minutes to the railway station to catch the 306 bus to the museum. It took an hour, cost just over a dollar each and was warm and comfortable enough. As we had been quoted a 150USD car service at the airport for the same excursion, we high-fived as the bus meandered its way to our destination.

The walk from the bus depot to the museum is a somewhat lengthy affair, lined with touristy restaurants as well as all manner of stands selling all manner of crap, from miniature figures of the clay soldiers to ceramic German shepherds to small battery powered seals that bark and balance balls on their noses. Ladies cajoled us with broken English to purchase their wares or eat their noodles as we hurried past, eager to get out of the cold.

The museum itself is essentially an enormous airplane hanger built over the excavation sight. It sits a few meters down from present day street level and is comprised of now roofless corridors full of ranks of the terracotta soldiers eerily poised as though ready to defend at any moment. Officers and infantry, horses and the remains of chariots stand guard facing east, the direction from which Qin's enemies would likely attack. Each statue's face is unique, each a very distinct personality. Among the legions are the remains of the fallen, fragments of once beautiful figures broken by the passage of millennia and the collapse of rotted wooden roof beams.

Our heads were spinning as we left. The work and care it must have taken to create such an amazing collection only to bury it forever was astounding to us. In fact, we were so blown away that we wandered into a restaurant for lunch that served us the most disappointing and one of the priciest meals we've eaten in China. Small plates of over cooked noodles, not the dishes we ordered, were presented to us and our attempts to contest the exorbitant bill were met with little more than indifference. You can't win 'em all.

We took the bus back to the city, warmed up at the hotel, found a small soup stand on a cold street and ate our Christmas dinner sitting at a low table on the sidewalk. It may not have been a Dickensian goose, but I couldn't have imagined a more satisfying and warming moment. Happy holidays, dear friends.
-Ken