After a good night rest, surprisingly, we arrived in Xi'an. The train station in Xi'an was really overwhelming. There were people everywhere. Once we exited the station we noticed the weather was still crumby and much colder than Shanghai. The area outside of the station was unwelcoming and full of sketchy people. We had printed out directions to the hostel but we were turned around a bit. We walked to the bus stop area but could not find our bus number anywhere. We finally asked someone were our bus was and they pointed us in the right direction around the corner. The bus stop for our bus was so crowded. It was not only congested with people but also lots of traffic. They were doing quite a bit of construction around the train station and thus created a madhouse of people and vehicles. After waiting five to ten minutes our bus arrived. It was really difficult to get on. Imagine a heard of cattle trying to go through a small opening in a fence. On the bright side the bus fare was only 15 cents.
Anyways, we got on and then began to start counting the stops. We only needed to go five stops and then follow the rest of the directions. We got off at our stop and then attempted to make our way to the hostel. We got a little turned around again but eventually found the street we needed to. The area did not seem that nice, and this was in the day time. The reviews we read had warned us about that so we were ready for it anyways. The hostel itself was practically brand new so it made up for the surrounding area.
We checked in and laid our stuff down. The hostel had it's own restaurant so we ordered some breakfast and got acquainted with the city by looking at a local map. After a great breakfast we asked how to get to the Terracotta Army. They gave really easy directions and seeing that we needed to go back the way we just came we knew we could do it easily.
We hoped on the same bus we took to get to the hostel and headed back to the train station. The traffic was really congested at this point, even more so than earlier. We actually got off the bus prior to our stop because we were not going anywhere. We found the bus we needed to take to see the Army. At first we were a little confused because we did not know were to buy the bus ticket. The man on the bus just gestured to hop on and then I made the correct assumption that they would collect once we started our journey. We waited for about ten minutes for the bus to fill up. The bus ride was not bad. It was like a public bus so not that nice. We knew we had to take it to the last stop so no need to count stops this time. After about a little over an hour or so driving in the rain we made it to our destination.
We walked to the ticket both and bought two tickets to see the Terracotta Army. The walk to the entrance was quite long. It felt like we were walking forever. Once we went through the gate we had to walk even more to see the pits. There are three major excavation pits where they excavated several hundred Terracotta Warriors. The warriors were made for the first emperor's tomb to follow him into his afterlife. No two warriors looked alike and were all life size. We headed to the largest pit and I was speechless. I remember in sixth grade first learning about this excavation and was just flabbergasted. I knew I would see them one day, and here we were in the humongous covered pit looking at history straight in the eye. It just does not any better than this. This site blew me away and made the entire trip. We walked around the entire area and read all the plaques of information. After we walked the whole way around and took plenty of pictures we went to the next two pits.
The other pits were smaller but equally interesting. We also went to another building which housed the museum. In one pit we were able to see some warriors that were excavated and put on display for people to see up close. It was just so fascinating to see the warriors. I mean these warriors date back over 2000 years. This was the beginning of a united China. You could just feel the history. I was on a complete high of excitement. Latanya was very happy for me to be able to experience this.
After strolling around a little while longer we headed back out the front gate. We had a little lunch and then got on a bus back to Xi'an. The bus we got on this time was much nicer than the one we took out here. We arrived back in Xi'an and made our way back to the hostel. We had pretty much the same experience getting on the same bus once again. It was still raining and cold. We were not too eager to see much of the rest of the city. We already saw the city wall at the train station. The next day we were going to pass the bell tower.
When we got back to the hostel we showered up and then went down to the lobby. We watched a couple of movies, met some nice people, Latanya made dumplings with the staff and other guests and we had dinner. It was a great evening altogether. The next day we were on our way back to Shanghai, this time we were flying.
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