Terracotta Warriors "Two farmers found some pottery when they were digging for a well."

I recently got back into marveling at the wondrous things that have been discovered all over the world in the past many many years. I thought for awhile that I didn't care, but what's the point of that? You might as well get into life!

The Terracotta Warriors are in Xi'an, China and west of Shanghai and Beijing. And, from where I am living, which is in Ningbo, China, a city about 2 hours south of Shanghai along the coast, it was about a 2.3 hour flight. The site of the warriors is out of the town, Xi'an, about 45 minutes by local bus. I didn't take the big tour. There were many advertised at the hostel I stayed at, the lowest starting at 90$ Can. They were all kind of expensive and took you to other sites that I personally thought didn't sound all that interesting or authentic. I just wanted the meat, just wanted to stare at the warriors and take it all in, marvel at what humans created for whatever reason.

I didn't find out too much information before I went. Basically, I asked a few people about what they thought about the warriors and that was enough: A king had them built, wanted to be buried with them, some of the faces were made to replicate some of the actual warriors. I wouldn't remember a lot information anyhow.

When I arrived, we got down from the bus. My expectations of the entrance to such a great site were not met. It just looked kind of like a slowly going out of business small market. I walked through that and had a look around and then came to another entrance where I bought my ticket. It wasn't cheap, like 120 rmb, which is about 24$ Can. It was packed with. people! I went over the spring holiday, around the Chinese new year. I was also expecting to see more foreigners, but there were so few, just me and another family of four, I think from France.

I bought the ticket and headed in the same direction as the crowd. Approaching the entrance there were many shops and restaurants. Many. I'm guessing years ago it wasn't like that at all but more low key.

I walked through the security gate/ entrance gate, like you would at an amazement park with turnstiles. Through the gates, there's a big map of the area. It shows that there will be three great big pavilions and gave the break down of what's in each. Basically it was that the Terracotta Warrior pavilion will be the most awesome, and the others will be there...

Then you walk through these slightly naturey paths to the area, through another set of turnstiles and you are there! Right in front of you is the first pavilion, and the others are to the right of it. I walked straight ahead and into the pavilion.





Wow! The pavilion is oval in shape. The whole building is the size of a large ice skating rink but no ice:) Where the ice would be is where the warriors were unearthed. And, like an ice rink there were barriers, so you couldn't walk on. The warriors were down like a floor, so you were looking down at them and about two thousand of them.

I read the information tableaus, and here is what I remember:
1. There were 2000 Terracotta warriors unearthed, but there is an estimated 6,000 still uncovered.
2. They were discovered by two farmers who were digging a well and found some pottery.
More information: apparently after the warriors are unearthed they begin to deteriorate at a much quicker speed. Originally they were colorful.

Back to when I walked into the pavilion. Right in front of me was a crowd of people pressed against the barriers at the head of the pavilion. I slowly squished my way through and joined the marveling. I marveled all nice! It was pretty incredible. I was a little speechless upon my first gaze. The reason they were built seems a little ridiculous, but they are cool.

I walked slowly to the left and just enjoy it. The the area within the barriers were divided into many areas. You can really see how the excavating happened. They left the warriors exactly where they found them and built the building around them.

I continued down the left and out the back door and onto the next pavilion. This one was similar but with much less but had some horses with chariots in the center, and had some warriors that were removed and placed into large glass or plastic display cases, or maybe they were just replicas, and placed off to side of the pavilion.

Following that, I went to the next building which was an historical museum. It was alright.

On the way out, there was a small walking street lined with vendors selling all sorts of local tasty looking food which I presumed to be more pricey due to its local. The one that looked the tastiest was a middle eastern looking guy selling beef kababs.. I didn't experience one, but they did look great. Further down the way were the big U.S. chains: Starbucks, KFC, Dairy Queen and another, I forgot, fully touristy.



The whole experience there was about an hour and half but completely worth it!