Day 14 - Part II

So today we made the first stop Starbucks...Scotty needs his coffee you know!  Then off to the Warriotorium.  This has been a huge anticipation for me.  After about an hour's drive we arrive.  It is difficult to believe that just 35 years ago this was all farmland.  It is now buildings and parking lots.  I will say that it is really very tastefully done - they have tried to leave the surrouding area as natural as possible. Diane hired an English speaking guide and we were off.  Our first stop was a movie about the history (and ultimate destruction) of the statues, the discovery of them and the building of the Warriotorium.  Not exctally "Oscar" material but very informitive none-the-less. Next we entered the pits.  Now I promised myself I was not going to write about this part simply because if I start I will not be able to stop.  I will say words like amazing, incredible, unreal, wonderfull.....they don't even scratch the surface.  I did a ton of research before we came to China on this.  It interested me so i wanted to know something about it before we got here.  Trust me on this:  Whatever you have read about this place or seen on television....it doesn't hold a candle to being in the presesce of the real thing.  Two thousand years of history.  A different time, a different culture.  I was filled with so many different emotions - excitment, sorrow, amazement, wonder...awe. They call this the most historic archaeological find of the 20th century and the 8th wonder of the world.  Before seeing this in person I was like "yeah, whatever.  Nice marketing guys".  After being there in person I think I can say they are correct on both accounts. We left the Warriotorium and stopped by one of the factories that make the soldiers for purchase in today's market.  They actually follow the same process used two-thousand years ago!  They also make some incredible 30 layer, hand rubbed laquor furniture.  Beautifull stuff. On the way back we stopped by Dayan Ta or "big Wild Goode" pagoda.  My wimpy companions were like "oh, not more stairs!!!" and didn't want to climb it.  Fine.  I left them at the bottom and did it myslef!  Babies. We stopped by a resturant for lunch and headed back to the hotel.  A little "break" in the day (my companions had to rest - did I mention I am the OLDEST IN THE GROUP???) and we headed to the Xi'An wall. The Wall around Xi'an was built around the old city to protect it.  Since "the day" the city has expanded ouside of the wall's confines but they still keep it in good shape.  It is probabally forty feet or so wide with battlements on both sides.  The deck is very rough.  You can rent bikes and ride around it which we did.  Takes about an hour.  Diane and I were laughing at the fact that our street bikes would never have made it up there.  The stones are so rough and the gaps between them are wider than the tires on our Cannondales.  No doubt our tires would have caught in them and we would have been pitched over the side and landed 30 feet below.  It is about 14 kilometers around the wall which is about ten miles and it took about an hoiur to do.  You can see most of the city from there but you can't really see across from one side to another.  One reason is the pollution but the other is that the city is growing so much that there are just too many buildings in the way. Another famous site in Xi'an is the Bell Tower and that was next on our list.  There is a huge bell, probabally twelve or fifteen feet tall, on the corner and for ten Kui you can ring it.  So Di (not my Diane, the other one.  That probabally has been a bit confusing during these posts huh?  Should have thought about that sooner - sorry) was up first.  Next to the bell is a log suspended by a rope.  You pull the log back and swing it at the bell striking it on the side and making it ring.  Someone probabally should have told Di that you really should "swing" the log at the bell rather than hold onto the log as it hits the bell's surface............think about this - you'll get it. My turn was next.  I told Pete that I would give him five bucks if he stood up inside the bell while I was ringing it but he wasn't interested.  He "gets" things pretty quickly. We hit the local Starbucks for re-fueling and then went off to our next site. The Drum Tower is another "must see" in Xi'an.  Therre are big drums on their sides lining all four sides of the tower and again, for ten Kui you can strike one of the really big ones.  The guy told me to hit it really hard and I gave it everything I had. The bell was funner.  There is a resturant in Xi'an that is famous for it's dumplings and that is were we had dinner.  Our first course was interesting.  There were cold pea pods (they were actually very tasty), something wrapped up in something (it was "ok" but the pea pods were better), a goose gizard patte' (wasn't that great) and something that looked like brownish, clearish, yellowish gelatin (after seeing the expression on Di's face when she took a nibble I decided to pass.  I'm adventurous but I'm not stupid).  I was beginning to be a little worried about what the rest of the dinner ws going to be like but then the dumplings came.  And came.  And came.  And they were WONDERFULL!  They make cute little shapes out of some of them too like the duck ones look like a duck.  We had probabally ten trays of dumplings brought to us, all different kinds.  They brought four of each so everyone gets one of everything.  And I have to tell you again, my Diane was a trooper!  She ate like a native and tried all sorts of new things!  And to her surprise (and ours) she found she liked a lot of them!   After dinner we walked a bit and did some last minute shopping.  We were in a store buying some diet Coke and water and I saw a guy shoplift an Ice Cream.  Of course my natural reaction was to yell at the owner "hey, that guy just stole from you" but of course he didn't speak any english and just smiled.  With my Diane telling me to leave it alone and the fact that I was in a foriegn country where people get executed for pick-pocketing I curbed my instinct to grab the guy and lay him over the counter untill the police came.  It did surprise me though, in a society where Honor is held so high that even I would see something like this.  Oh well, you find the scum of the earth everywhere I guess.