Xi'an seems a bit of a blog-free zone. We have been having real problems getting on to the web-site.
We arrived yesterday and it looked like we would be staying forever. It is a 12 hour train journey here from Beijing and a 12 hour train journey over to Shanghai. Having arrived here in the early morning we went to book train tickets out to Shanghai and were told there was none. None that day, none the next, none the day after. Standing room only. We did not much like the sound of standing for 12 hours in a crowded train with back-packs.
So it looked like we would be staying in Xi'an for quite some time.
So instead we are flying out. What was a 12 hour night journey has now become a 2 hour day trip, and still in time to get to our luxury hotel in Shanghai, which came free with our UK flights.
It has to have been the coldest day so far. We drove up to the Terracotta Warriors Museum. Snow began to fall and was carpetting the ground by the time we arrived there.
It is China's number one tourist attraction and when you arrive at the side of Pit 1 and see the massed ranks of these soldiers standing grimly behind each other, you understand why. There are supposed to be 6,000 of them in Pit 1 and they are still uncovering Pits 2 and 3, with more pits probably to follow.
Each warrior is different in face and expression. At various points there are the shattered remains of warriors lying in the dirt. They look like some defeated army, legs, arms and heads scattered across a battlefield. Some, if not most, of the warriors were probably based on real soldiers or friends of the artisans who created them. Their clay faces are all that is left of them.
We were also planning to see some hot, thermal springs on the way back but is was too cold to even get out of the car and walk around. Call us wimps but we headed back to the warmth of the hotel.
Shanghai tomorrow and it feels like the home-straight of our journey.
Hopefully the Internet will be better; we have missed blogging with you.
We arrived yesterday and it looked like we would be staying forever. It is a 12 hour train journey here from Beijing and a 12 hour train journey over to Shanghai. Having arrived here in the early morning we went to book train tickets out to Shanghai and were told there was none. None that day, none the next, none the day after. Standing room only. We did not much like the sound of standing for 12 hours in a crowded train with back-packs.
So it looked like we would be staying in Xi'an for quite some time.
So instead we are flying out. What was a 12 hour night journey has now become a 2 hour day trip, and still in time to get to our luxury hotel in Shanghai, which came free with our UK flights.
It has to have been the coldest day so far. We drove up to the Terracotta Warriors Museum. Snow began to fall and was carpetting the ground by the time we arrived there.
It is China's number one tourist attraction and when you arrive at the side of Pit 1 and see the massed ranks of these soldiers standing grimly behind each other, you understand why. There are supposed to be 6,000 of them in Pit 1 and they are still uncovering Pits 2 and 3, with more pits probably to follow.
Each warrior is different in face and expression. At various points there are the shattered remains of warriors lying in the dirt. They look like some defeated army, legs, arms and heads scattered across a battlefield. Some, if not most, of the warriors were probably based on real soldiers or friends of the artisans who created them. Their clay faces are all that is left of them.
We were also planning to see some hot, thermal springs on the way back but is was too cold to even get out of the car and walk around. Call us wimps but we headed back to the warmth of the hotel.
Shanghai tomorrow and it feels like the home-straight of our journey.
Hopefully the Internet will be better; we have missed blogging with you.
posted by Jan and Al at 10:51 PM
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