Golden Week Part II: Xi'an

     Our train arrived in Xi'an at 11:20 and our hostel met us again and we took a van to Xiangzimen hostel. The hostel was absolutely amazing! The architecture was old traditional Chinese style and huge! There was a restaurant and a bar as well as a people who did laundry for us! Our room was really nice and the bed was the best one I have had so far in China. We were sad we were only going to be staying in the hostel for 2 nights.

     As soon as we got there we showered and then went to get lunch in the Muslim quarter. Our food was not that great and our waitress was not very nice either. The Muslim quarter was also extremely crowded, as was all of Xi'an. After lunch we went a got Starbucks, I had a Mango Passionfruit smoothie that was amazing. Lucy's mom was also in Xi'an on a tour so then we caught a cab to her hotel, the Shangrila, to surprise her.  She was taking awhile so we sat in the hotel lounge and had cocktails. Finally Lucy's mom and grandma arrived! Her grandmother was doing something with the tour group, but Lucy's mom treated us to an amazing dinner at the Thai restaurant in the hotel. After dinner, Lucy's mom was exhausted and went to bed so we headed back to our hostel.
     After getting back to our hostel we went in search of an ATM.  On our way back, Lucy and I spotted a spa that was giving 90 minute 88RMB foot massages. We had not gotten massages yet, so the two of us decided to go! The spa was really nice. We ordered tea and sat in the couch like lounge chairs in a private room and watched a movie about Confucius.  The masseurs started out giving us arm and hand massages and then mine also massaged my stomach, which was a little awkward. Lucy's masseuse had left the room during this time, so she did not get a tummy rub. Then they massaged our feet and calves for a really long time. It was fabulous! Just when I thought they were finished, they told us to roll over and they also gave us back massages! It was a pretty well spent 88RMB!!  We headed straight back to the hostel after that and went to bed.
     The next morning we got up and gave our laundry to the attendant upstairs.  We had another great American style breakfast. Sarah even got a cappuccino that had a foam bear face on top.  Then we set out to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers! We sat on our bus waiting to leave for almost half an hour, but we finally we started to make our way!
      Our first stop was a factory where they still make Terra Cotta Soldiers.  We toured it and saw how they make the soldiers by putting local clay into little molds before letting them dry for long amounts of time. After seeing how they were made, we were taken to a shop where you could buy them! Since my Daddy had wanted a life sized Terra Cotta soldier and horse for our front yard, I almost sent them to him as a joke. However, it would have been several thousand USD and I did not think he would find it that funny. Instead I bought him a horse and soldier that are each around 8 or 10 inches high. I hope he likes them!
     After the factory, we headed to the actual site of the Terra Cotta soldiers.  First we watched a movie that gave us some background on them and then headed out to the actual pits. Pit 1 is the largest with the most complete set of warriors. It was a truly amazing site to see! I definitely understand why it is the 8th wonder of the world.  You could look at the soldiers and see each unique, individual face. The time and effort put into the soldiers was fascinating. Pit 2 was still in the process of being excavated, but still had some pretty cool things to see. The 3rd Pit was mostly not excavated and not very exciting.  Then we went to a museum which had more back ground on the Terra Cotta soldiers and the people who made them.

Me in front of Pit 1 of the Terra Cotta Soldiers

Soldiers from Pit 2

      Next, we went to a the Mausoleum of an Emperor, which was basically just a mountain because it is too dangerous to excavate anymore due to harmful chemicals in the soil. That area was pretty boring and we did not stay for long. We left and arrived back in the city a little after 6.
      After getting back to the hostel, we decided to look into doing a bike ride on the city wall. It took us awhile, and some pretty scary walking in the gutter of the road, before we finally figured out how to get on the wall.  Once we were up there we decided just to walk along it some and have a little photo shoot outside of one of the pagodas on it.  After all of the days excitement we wanted dinner so we went to a restaurant called De Fa Cheng, where we had an 18 course jiaozi meal!  It was super cool because several of the jiaozi were specially shaped like different things. We had ones that looked like a fish and ones that kind of looked like a flower basket as well. As we were eating, we noticed that an older group of Chinese men kept taking our pictures with their high tech zoom lens cameras from across the restaurant.  I am sure they got many attractive pictures of us shoving food in our mouths. On our way out, we walked past them and they asked to have pictures with us. I am sure those were much better!
     Back at the hostel we went down to the bar and had a couple of drinks.  We chatted with the hostel manager, whose name was Jim Beam (he was Chinese so this was the English name he chose, we loved it!).  Then we sat in the hostel restaurant and played cards for awhile. We went to bed not too much later because we had to catch a taxi by 10 to get to the airport for our flight to Sanya! The hostel got a private taxi to take us, which was pretty sweet and we got there just fine.  Although Xi'an was really cool, we were excited to travel to Sanya because the air pollution and crowds in Xi'an were awful!