Xi’an – Say it Slowly, ‘She-anne’
Despite only about three and a half hours of sleep I was up by 7:30 and on pace to meet Anne, (despite whatever I may have led you to believe, it turns out her name is not in fact Anna. Oops.), Evan and Dave at their hotel near the train station. We had pretty lofty goals with plans to hit the terracotta warriors, a Neolithic village, hot springs and the First Emperors tomb. First we had to manage to get all of us into the same room. I swung by McDonald’s and grabbed a breakfast sandwich for everyone before taking a taxi. I arrived to find Evan in the lobby but Dave was still trying to take a non-Doobie Brothers shower. That is to say it was ‘old black water’. Eww. It was not long before Anne joined us and it was decided that since Dave would be leaving that afternoon at 5pm that we would allow him to get his shower while we went back downtown. I wanted to buy a new camera and Anne needed gloves and such. We headed back to the McDonald’s I had earlier visited with the plan to meet back there after we each accomplished our goal. I found a camera store right above the McD’s and found a camera that would meet my requirements. I began negotiating and even left once eventually driving the price down by ten percent. Since we had agreed on a price I needed to get cash so I asked the store owner where a Bank of China was. I was sent a block and a half and around the corner only to have the tellers at the branch tell me that since it was not my branch that they could not help me. Wow. Beginning to worry about time I jogged back and was able to draw the cash from the BoC ATM I had passed. A fistful of cash and no idea where Anne and Evan were I was pretty quickly alerted to their presence as they snuck up from behind and stuck their hands in my pockets. Jokers. They headed to McD’s while I went to complete the purchase of the camera. I explained in a ‘charades’ sort of way to the Chinese man that was helping me in the camera store why I needed a new one and he teased me. It turned out he is one of many photographers that stand near scenic spots and wait for Chinese tourists to pay him to take pictures of them. With my new Sony DSC-W1 in hand I went back down to the McD’s to show it off to the kids. From the door I made eye contact with a lau wei and said hello. Dan is from Southern California, lives in Korea and was traveling alone during his holiday. With another stray we now numbered five. Now that we were nearly half an hour late to meet back up with Dave we jammed ourselves into a taxi and headed to the hostel.
Tick tock. We were starting to get concerned about time which was really nice of us since it was us who were late. Now we couldn’t find Dave. He wasn’t showering, hadn’t checked out but was nowhere to be found. We thought that perhaps he had gone on without us and we decided to go ask at the bus station using a picture of him that Evan had on his camera. It seemed like a better idea than it turned out to be and realizing what a complicated low probability chance we instead milled about with hopes that he would turn up. Sure enough, nearly thirty minutes later he walks out of the internet room at the hostel. Who knew? Now along with us in the lobby was a Chinese man who had approached us to see if we were going to see the terracotta warriors and when finding out we wanted to he offered to arrange a private vehicle for us for only 260RMB. Armed with the knowledge that a municipal bus could deliver us for only 8RMB we quickly and politely declined. He then asked us how much we would pay. Evan responded that 50RMB would be fair. He said that he could take us there and to a few other stops but that 50RMB was too low. Fine with us we decided and thanked him as he flittered away to find more tourists to ‘help’. Dave needed to take his bags to the train station and then we would be off. No sooner had we dropped his bags when our ‘friend’ from the lobby reappeared offering us a vehicle for 60RMB. We quickly accepted this and were on our way with ‘Jackie’ to guide us. We outlined where we hoped to go and the order of importance that we placed on each destination. Since we wanted to go directly to the terracotta warriors, Jackie thought it would be worth our time to go to a ‘make factory’ so we could see how they make the small collectibles that the tourists love. We were initially ambivalent and then suspicious that it would be a sales pitch and that Jackie was perhaps delivering us for a cut. Our suspicions were for naught and it was actually very cool to see the process. The woman who gave us the brief tour spoke exceptional English, (no doubt that it ‘paid’ for her to know it), and was great at answering our questions including the relentless hounding of Dan. It seems that he had purchased some 8″-12″ terracotta warriors in Tianjin, just South of Beijing, and he was quite convinced of their authenticity. He could not seem to wrap his mind around the concept of these finely crafted replicas and asked if they shipped to Tianjin. We were trying to contain our laughter while he worked through this tough word problem until finally with enough time spent on it we headed back to the van in an effort to get him to let it go. When he joined us we thought perhaps he had moved on but we passed at least two more ‘make’ factories with Dan remarking that, maybe that is where the Tianjin ones are made. He seemed to get the humor.
We passed a sphinx and a pyramid along the way and parked in a large lot across from the terracotta warrior museum to begin our walk in. Once inside we headed to the bathroom to get that out of the way, poked our heads into the CircleVisionâ„¢ movie that depicted 360 degree views of battle re-enactments and then decided to head to the pits. I’ve mentioned that Evan began his journey in Cyprus on an archaeology dig but what I failed to mention is that he holds a degree in Archaeology. Pretty cool to see this with his knowledge on hand. Once on the grounds of the museum it was Evan that suggested we travel backwards, rather than go to Pit 1 then Pit 2 and finally Pit 3 we did it in reverse order so as to build up to the biggest most impressive display. He was spot on with this suggestion and we avoided any underwhelming that might have occurred had we gone in top down order. It is hard to describe how incredible this was to see. It is one of those great discoveries that when you read about it you think, I’d sure like to see that, only to quickly have the idea slip away into the wake of Real Life.
Inside Pit 1, Anne and Dave were quickly interviewed for Chinese television. We were also very surprised to see a large number of Chinese Army soldiers on hand as tourists. They were pretty amusing as they went from disciplined marching to laughing and giggling. We all took some great pictures with them. I also ran into a Chinese couple that I had seen at both the Bell Tower and Drum Tower as well as on the dance floor at the disco the night before. They were visiting from Nanjing, near Shanghai and we all agreed it was pretty cool to keep seeing each other. One of the more intriguing features of Pit 1 that Evan and I could not quite figure out was a stand overlooking the terracotta warriors in Braille. Really. Think about it.
Since we had spent longer than we anticipated in awe of this ancient wonder we agreed we had better get going in order to make it to the other stops. Not before some shopping, natch. On the way back to the van there was a pretty incredible open market selling all things terracotta and some things not. It was incredible because you needn’t move as vendors rushed to us while dueling each other with lower prices. We had to be very careful with our hands or we would end up with something in it while a vendor asked for the money. I actually set something I didn’t want on the ground and walked away from it. My tackiest purchase? A metal ‘terracotta’ archer who’s hair flips down to reveal it to be a lighter. With matching ashtray. And matching bottle opener. It’s beautiful. Anne bought a terrific fox fur hat after being inspired by the cool one Evan brought from Russia.
Next stop, the Tomb of the First Emperor. Think very large burial mound. It must be seven to ten stories high and still buried in the base and not open or burrowed into still lies the First Emperor. Anne, Evan, Dan and I made the climb while Dave hung back with a nagging knee injury. The view from the top was nice but limited due to the pollution that cannot be escaped. We met back up with Dave and it was decided that we would have to forgo the Neolithic village and the hot springs in order to get Dave to his 5:30 train on time.
Now we were four. Evan wanted desperately to move from his dungeon room into something with carpet so we headed back to the hostel so he could make some better arrangements. He eventually ended up in the same dorm-style room as Anne. I helped him carry his bags from downstairs and somewhere in all this we lost track of Dan. Nowhere to be found. So we decided to have dinner. We headed back to the center of town so I could drop my bag and we would find food near there. After a couple of near misses including a Japanese restaurant with a 1200RMB steak we found ourselves at an all you can eat barbecue place. Chinese barbecue is meat-on-a-stick and some of it was outrageously good. A jazz trio increased an already great atmosphere. We ate well and a good time was had. Post dinner we had already decided we were not really looking for a party atmosphere like the previous night and made our way up the block, turned the corner and found this great curved street covered with cobblestones and lined with bars. Selecting one that was upstairs, we hung out and talked for hours while we nursed our beers and flirted with a game of dice and a game of cards before just settling on hanging out and talking while a solo guitarist worked through some great stuff. The hours had slipped by and it was soon nearly midnight. With the help of Anne’s Lonely Planet guidebook we decided to try to find a Western breakfast at Dad’s Home Cooking in the morning. You know, a real Western breakfast, not McD’s.
Since it was just a short walk to my hotel I agreed to meet them at 9:30 and said goodnight.
Goodnight,
O.