We arrived in Xian at 2:00 in the afternoon.  After some confusion because our plane arrived earlier than our guide, we were off to visit one of the things I have always wanted to see in person since I was a kid, the terra cotta soldiers.  The tomb of the Terra Cotta soldiers from the Qin dynasty is one of China's most famous relics.  It is amazing to think that it has only been uncovered for 29 years. 

Standing in front of an army of 1,000 that have been unveiled was amazing.  The detail on the statues is precise.  Of course that's probably because if the artisan made a mistake in the quality of the soldiers they would be killed.  But hey, you just got to know how to work under pressure now don't you?

Now they are a couple of facts that I did not realize about the Terra Cotta Soldiers besides the death to bad artisans that is.  1) A general who did not like Qin busted into the tomb ten years after it's completion and broke all of the soldiers and that the locals had been using the area for a cemetery for almost 100 years prior to it's discovery and never reported the soldiers were there.  These graves are shown in the picture below.  See the cuts in the walls.  They literally are at shoulder height.  Now, since most of the soldiers had been broken This is a possibility of them not being discovered but some of the soldiers were only knocked into other soldiers.  Another amazing thing that I did not realize was that the soldiers were originally painted.  Within three hours of being dug out of the soil during the archeological dig, the color disappears.  They have left most of the soldiers covered until they can find a way to stop the color from disappearing. 

We actually go to see and get a signed book from the farmer who discovered the soldiers.  When he originally discovered the soldiers he was given the equivalent of  $3.65 American.  He thought that it was a bad omen when he found them and that he would be haunted by them.  Can you imagine finding such an amazing find? 

I also did not realize that there were more terra cotta figures at the actual emperor's tomb.  Due to time constraints we could not make it to the tomb.  But our book we bought shows pictures of the acrobats and the weapons chamber at the emperor's tomb.

It is here at the Terra cotta soldiers that we met our most persistent local sales people.  The local farmers are selling clay statues.  They literally chased us all the way back to our car shouting prices at us.  They do not take no for an answer.  One women chased us for a good half mile down the path to the car.    What an experience. 

After the soldiers we went to see the hot springs palace where the emperor of the Han and QIn dynasties spent their winters.  This area had natural hot springs from a no longer active Volcano.  The architecture here was very different from any that we had seen.  We had only a half hour here to make a quick trip around.  It was very beautiful.

Our guide recommended an activity for the evening for us that we not part of our package tour.  We decided to go see the Han dynasty performance.  The music and dancing was very beautiful and very unique.  We were both glad we went. 

The next morning, we went to the city wall which is only a mere 600 years old.  The wall stretches 11 kilometers around the central portion of the city.  It was a nice view. 

The rest of the day we spent in airports.  We got home at 1:30 am in the morning.  Ready for a good night sleep. I only wish our time in Xian was a little longer so we could have seen a bit more of the city and it's historic sites.