Xi'an and the Terra-cotta Army August 15th - 19th

...but before that I had to put on some MYGGA (mosquito repellent), my best friend during this trip :P Hate mosquitoes, but they seems to love me..



Time to go to sleep...


Our night at the empty club.. Yeah, we ruled the dance floor...haha.



This big Terracotta soldier was in the opening -or closing ceremony of Beijing's Olympic Games.





This carriage have gold and silver in it which are melted (don't know if I use the right English term) together. To melt gold and silver together today you need electricity, so it is a big mystery on how they managed to do that back then.









The soldiers were buried in bright colors, but when they are dugged (sorry, don't know the right English word to use, but hopefully you get what I mean..haha) up their color fades away completely after just a few hours.





Some Terracotta soldiers that just have been dug out and are going to be rebuilt









The Terracotta Army


I joined the Terracotta Army :P



Here is a picture of the main tomb were the emperor is buried, and which we climbed. Inside the tomb they put mercury so no one could get in and rob it.


The stairs we had to go up to the top of the actually tomb were the emperor is buried. It was too many stairs for a hot, hot and humid day.. When I reached the top I thought I was going to die..haha.






The red colored trees is were all the concubines to the first emperor was buried alive. The color red means woman.





Put some pictures of information of the first emperor's tomb that you hopefully can read so I don't have to write so much.. :P






X'ian's Bell Tower by night



The bathroom


The hallway



Notice the nice art on the wall



Our laundry hanging in the cord of the air condition in our "cell"



Relaxing with a beer in the common area of the hostel



The entrance of Bell Tower hostel



Relaxing and enjoying the comfort that a hotel provides...haha






Me in the lobby of Gloria Hotell



Leaving Lama Temple Youth Hostel... And are ready for X'ian and new adventures.




After the great walk on the Great Wall was our next stop X'ian. We had booked plane tickets and was ready for the two hour flight from Beijing to X'ian. We decided that since we had been such good troopers (we thought) walking on the wall and stayed in a dirty hostel, that we deserved a treat; ONE NIGHT IN A CLEAN HOTEL. Haha.. And oh it was so good, I felt reborn. I know we were supposed to go on a backpacker trip, but hey...It's our first time doing something like that, not used to that kind of a life style, so one night in a hotel is okay.. ;P

After a good night sleep it was time to check out and go back to the backpacker life style...back to reality...haha. Our hostel , called Bell Tower hostel, was in the middle of city center of X'ian right next to the Bell Tower. I think I liked this hostel, though our room was kind of small. It had no windows, nothing on the walls, just some writings from people who stayed in the room before us, two beds and a table. It felt like a prison cell..haha. But the hostel had it's own bar and served food, it had a pool table, and it had the right backpacker/hostel atmosphere.. Okay, the
Lama Temple hostel in Beijing wasn't too bad either if you think about the atmosphere.. The first night at Bell Tower hostel we just stayed in, had some beer and played some pool, because the next day we had to get up early to go on this tour to see the Terracotta army, which was the main reason why we chose to go X'ian. Have to admit I had not heard much about the army before Joraan told me she wanted to see them..

So here are some facts about the city X'ian and the Terracotta army:

The existing city wall is from the Ming dynasty and it is 14 km long and is from 1300 century, that same as the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower of X'ian. Outside the existing city wall there is another city wall from the Qin Dynasty, which are 36 km long. X'ian was often chosen to be the capital city because of its location. X'ian is surrounded by 8 rivers (2 in each direction) and mountains, which gave good opportunities for hunting and trade transportation. It was a wealthy city.

China was divided in 7 different parts. The first emperor (13 years old) united those 7 parts to one China. At the age of 14 years old he started to build his own tomb. Over 700 000 people worked to build that tomb and they used 37 years...crazy.. The first emperor died at the age of 51 years old. The tomb is bigger than a small city, and the Terracotta Army is just 3% of the tomb.

When the first emperor united China he also united the currency, which made the currency stronger, and he united the written symbols. During the first emperor's rule it was bad conditions for his people, because of his big building projects, but for the other emperors after him and their people they lived a good and wealthy life because of his building projects and vision. Still to this day China can thank the first emperor's vision, because of the Great Wall and the Terracotta army (2 wonders of the world) he started to build, China lives good on tourism.

The Terracotta Army is made of terracotta clay. They are buried strategical with the thought of a real attack. Those who made the soldiers had to sign their name under the foot of the soldier so you could see the difference of a good or bad made soldier. Those who made bad quality soldiers were in worst case killed. The soldiers were shaped differently according to which rang they belonged to. The Terracotta soldiers had a lot of details on them. During the Ming dynasty some of the army was robbed and destroyed. It can take up to 5 years to rebuild a soldier because they only use the original pieces. There has been 1500 soldiers that has been rebuilt. They believe that there are 6000 soldiers in total.

To see the Terracotta Army was quite a sight. Thinking of how many that was actually made and buried, and many many years later they were found by 11 farmers in 1974. Of the 11 farmers it is only 3 that are still alive today, and one of them works at the museum just signing books.

The next day, which was our last day in X'ian before we were leaving for Shanghai, we just went for some shopping and tried to find a club during night.. We found one close to the hostel, but it was totally empty..haha.. But it was fine..we had fun anyways.. We were too tired to go far away from the hostel to find a better one..

The Great Walk on the Great Wall August 14th

In our bunk beds in our silk sleeping bags (hehe) after the great hike..





You might be able to see a person in the sky taking the flying fox..




Almost at the finish line where we were supposed to take the flying fox down above the lake.. That was a fun ride :)



















Oh and as you can see I did not have the best shoes to walk in that day.. But I had got real blisters from my other shoes, so I had no choice.. But It actually went really well with flip flops though..











The great walk on the Great Wall has begun..



Sevilla stepping out of the cabel car





Me and Joraan ready to walk on the Great Wall. We had to take, or we chose to take, the cabel car up to the wall. After all we were supposed to walk 8 km, so 30 min of not walking up to the wall did not bother us.. :P



To the readers of this blog: the first thing you have to do when you read my blog is to scroll down to the bottom of every inlay to know the beginning of that particular inlay (..just in case you hadn't noticed that..).. For some reason I wanted to do it in that style..?!?..haha..

After our sightseeing at Tian'aman Square and the Forbidden City we used the next couple of days in the city and to try and find our way on our own. We got to borrow a Lonely Planet book from a Swedish girl, Maria, that we got know at the hostel. She too could speak Chinese well. Thank god for Sevilla and Maria..hehe.. We actually managed to find the street we heard so much about that were known for good shopping. As we're walking in the street we randomly meet Maria, which was kind of funny when you think about it..Beijing so big and all.. So we decide to go for dinner.. at this Korean restaurant.. Yes!! Finally some good food.. I have to admit that I don't like the taste of Chinese food that much..

We also got to try some Chinese massage, which was good.. Though Maria experienced that her massage woman kind of made a move towards her..and also wanted Maria to take her to Sweden...haha.. Anyways, all three of survived the massage..

So, after those couple of days we decided to do the most important thing when you are in China: Walk on the Great Wall!

We had booked 3 tickets, for me, Joraan and Sevilla. We were all so ready and wide awake at 5.30 am, haha. We almost missed the bus that left 6.40 am. At least we got to warm up before the big walk by running to the bus stop.. It took 3 hours by bus to get to the starting point of the walk, and the walk was about 8 km long and started from Jin Shan Ling to Si Ma Tai.. *phew*.. It was a sunny and warm day.. HOT HOT HOT.. And as cleaver as we are we didn't have the time to eat breakfast (just a bag of potato chips..) and we managed to just bring 1 l of water, which is not enough for that kind of a hike on a day like that.. It is a wonder that we survived.. Luckily there were Chinese people who were selling water and sodas at each tower.. During our walk two Chinese women were following me and Joraan, helping us up the stairs, waiving with a fan etc.. And of course of the language barrier there was misunderstandings.. The reason why they were so "helpful" was because at the end we had to buy some souvenirs..though we kind of knew that they must want something in return. We never asked for any help from them, it was quite awkward in fact.. I bought some postcards from them so they would leave us alone. But all in all it was a really great walk, and I felt that I had accomplished something big when we sat on the bus back home..haha. When we came back we just took a long and hot shower and ate something and then went to bed. The next day were we going to fly to the next city on our route, Xi'an.