Xi'an, China
July 31, 2004

Home to the famous Terracotta Soldiers, Yang Jia and I went here hoping they'd live 
up to the hype. They didn't exactly, but at least we saw this eighth wonder of the world 
(self proclaimed of course). The city was a pretty gritty place so we only spent a day there.

We took the public bus from the station 45 minutes out to the Terracotta Soldier site.  
The site was discovered under a farmers field in the 1970's and has since become 
China's claim to archeological fame.  There are 3 specific sites, the largest of which has 
6000 soldiers, but the smallest of which only has 68.  They are exactly what 
you've always heard about, nothing more, nothing less.  That's cool, but the Chinese 
government charges an exorbitant amount of money and has dwarfed the importance 
of the actual soldiers with massive imposing buildings that detract immensely from the soldiers 
inside.  I tried to block out the surrounding building when taking pictures, but included 
it in a few to show how obnoxious it is.

Yang Jia and I felt it a shame the government doesn't put as much money into public areas of China.  
(I thought this was a communist state... for the people...)

Xi'an itself was an overly polluted, dirty place.  We spent the rest of the day in the city, 
but couldn't see anything worth staying for overnight and decided to head towards Shanghai.

This is the smallest site of soldiers which is thought to be the highest rank.  You can see 
they used to carry weapons, which were real... Some were stolen by a new dynasty which 
disrespected the emperor to whom this was dedicated.  And the remaining have been 
removed from public view and stored elsewhere in the museum buildings.  Each soldier 
was also painted accurately, but the paint has fallen away over time.  Their missing heads 
and some shattered statures are mostly due to occasional earthquakes in this region of 
China, but the sites that were raided by the new dynasty also smashed a fair number 
of heads and bodies while looting the weapons and setting fire to the sites.


This is the main site with 6000 soldiers






Around Xi'an
This is the common fire fighting method employed everywhere in China and Tibet.  Lack of a central 
water system means fire hydrants are non-existent, so dozens of fire-extinguishers are the only alternative.


Delicious street food


Kid getting a ride to market


Peaches and sunflower seeds


Street food in the Muslim quarter