I kept ordering green tea but the fuwuyuan didn't understand me, so eventually I gave up. (Ed note - the next day I ordered my tea first and pointed to it on the menu.)
I met Valarie at the train station, where we planned to catch a bus to see the Huaqing Hot Springs (华清池) and the Terracotta Army (兵马俑). I was a bit worried that I wouldn't recognize her - she's been teaching me for over a year but I've only ever seen her on Skype. But no problems! She looked exactly the same in real life:
Slightly shorter than I expected though. And her first words to me were "You are so tall!"
We first visited the Hua Qing Hot Springs, which is where the emperors used to go to relax (and to relax with their empress if you know what I mean). The nearby mountain is volcanic, which is what provides the "hot" to the hot springs. You can wash your hands and dip your feet, just like royalty used to do! To top things off you can have lunch in the royal restaurant (which we did) where they serve the same food as the emperor used to eat (or so they say).
Of course the main attraction of the whole visit was:
Huaqing is also the location of the famous "Xi'An Incident", where Mao Zedong and Chiang Kaichek made peace to combine forces against the invading Japanese, so everything chang Kaichek is immortalized here.
We then hopped another bus to visit the Terracotta Terracotta Army (兵马俑). There are 3 pits open for viewing, and all are currently being excavated. In fact there are 3 more pits that have been identified and excavation not even started yet, as well as the main mausoleum of the emperor, which is reputed to contain a scale map of China, with mercury for the rivers and lakes, and a mechanism to keep the mercury flowing. It was all constructed about 3000 years ago in the Qin dynasty.
It was very impressive! However over-hyped in a lot of ways. Pit 1 is advertised to contain "over 6000 soldiers", however when you get inside you find out that they "expect to find" over 6000 soldiers once the excavation is completed.
There are workers actively digging and putting new terracotta warriors together:
Note the "No Photos" sign. I took about a dozen photos of the workers. This one kind of reminded me of the photo Kevin took of me in Cambodia, sitting on the "No Sitting" sign.
Excavation on Pit 2 hasn't even started yet, but they provide a nice map to let you know what you may see eventually:
Pit 3 is the "command center" for pits 1 and 2:
For the really nerdy tourist, you can pay a couple of pics to pose as a terracotta warrior and have your picture taken. Valarie didn't want to do this but I made her.
After we got back to Xi'An (the Terracotta Army is about 45 km outside of town, and about a 1.5 hour bus ride during rush hour) Valarie helped me find a restaurant where I could try "biang biang mian". This is a local dish, and in fact the very first thing I ever learned about Xi'An was the name of this dish:
It's the most complex Chinese character, and kind of "made up" to represent the dish, as well as Shaanxi culture and history. (Xi'An is in the province of Shaanxi, which is right next door to the province of Shanxi. Thanks China for giving 2 provinces almost exactly the same name and then putting them right next door to each other.) The "biang" character is basically every other Chinese character thrown in together, and the dish is noodles with basically everything thrown in. The name "biang" comes from the sound when you cook the noodles - "Biang! Biang!" 非常好吃! There is a "special" version that comes with even more vegetables and beef, so I plan to return to the restaurant to try that!
Valarie spoke Chinese to me (mostly) and told off the shopkeepers, restaurant guy etc. when they tried to talk back to me in English. "He understands Chinese you know!" I think I spoke about 50/50 between Chinese and English, which is my best day so far this trip. I wish I could hang out with Valarie for my whole visit to Xi'An :-(
That crosses off almost everything on my Xi'An list (at least all the big items) so I can relax for the rest of my visit, and try to live life like a Xi'Aner. My one big bucket item remaining is to go to Hua Shan and hike the famous trail.
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