Today we woke up at 8:00AM (or earlier if we wanted to), had breakfast and packed our bags. For those who got up earlier there was the opportunity to email our family and read about the other blogs as we didn’t have to leave till 10:00AM. So compared to other mornings this was rather a relaxed start to the day.
We got on the bus and headed to the Terracotta Warrior factory where they make replica Terracotta Warriors of all shapes and sizes. We were taken on a tour and shown the whole process involved in making the figurines. They moulded clay, put the texture on and put the warrior figurines in the kiln. They looked really realistic. There were some particularly large ones available for purchase. Outside the factory there was the opportunity to have your photo taken as a terracotta warrior. After we had taken many photos of ourselves as warriors we went back on the bus to go to the Terracotta Warriors Museum.
After a quick but satisfying lunch we entered the museum. The Terracotta Warriors were built by the emperor, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. They were to be his underground army built to defend him when he passed on into the next life. The terracotta pieces include 8000 warriors, chariots and horses. A large amount of the warriors were later destroyed by the following successor’s army after the emperor died and then laid dormant for many thousands of years until they were discovered by three farmers in 1974. Since then the 3 pits containing the warriors have been and continue to be excavated. Pit 1 was amazingly huge and was situated in what can be described as a large aeroplane hangar. One thing we found particularly interesting was that each warrior had a unique face.
On the way out to the bus we took the opportunity to purchase some of the local fruit, pomegranates, to eat on the bus. They certainly were excellent value.
As we are writing this we are heading to airport on the bus as we are flying to Kunming tonight and then going to our hotel for a good night sleep.
– Riley Moller and Matt Rassias