18 April 2011

Xi'an

好久不见!

A couple of weeks ago Robin and I visited Xi'an, the city where the famous Terracotta Army is located. It is a very old city with more than 3000 years of history. Before the Ming dynasty the city was called Chang'an (the long peace) and was previously one of China's capital cities.

The biggest tourist attraction in Xi'an is obviously the terracotta army, which is located about one hour from the city. We took a bus straight from the train station to the terracotta army for 7 yuan = 7 kr = 1 dollar. It is an amazing experience to stand before the massive figures facing you. Today the figures have a brown/grey colour, but 2000 years ago they were all painted in bright colours. We were told some of the warriors still had fragments of paint on them, but we never got to see that. It is impossible to describe the layouts of the pits (there are three of them), so just scroll down and look at the pictures!

Terracotta Amry Pit 1



Close-up of "The Kneeling Archer"
 Besides visiting the terracotta army, we also watched a famous fountain show and biked around the whole city on the city wall, which was build in the 14th century. At 8 am we rented two bikes and started biking, and about two hours later we had completed the tour.

Me on the City Wall