Haze of Glory

Yes, I admit to seeing Blades of Glory with Will Ferrell not once, but twice (the 2nd time was on the plane connecting through Singapore from Sydney to Beijing. And yes, it made me laugh both times (Imagine that on the plane). So I thought the title 'Haze of Glory' was a shout-out to that movie and the great haze of Xi'an amongst all its glory. The weather in China is very interesting. When we first got to Beijing, we had bright sunny days and the air seemed somewhat fresh. It was definitely cloudy and overcast, but okay. Datong, which happens to be the main coal mining town of China (70% or something), was diiiiiiirty and very very polluted and smoggy. Now we are in Xi'an and its sooooo hazy and smoggy. And rainy. Yesterday (or was it the day before?) we were looking right at the sun and it didn't hurt the eye because it was so hazy. You can literally see only about 1 mile in front of you. Someone told us to look out for this Temple to orient ourselves and we were squinting and hardly could identify an outline of what we would later see to be a Temple (Which was today. Its 'clear,' aka. we can see about 2 miles in front of us). Crazy.

Anyhoo, Xi'an is most famous for the Terracotta Soldiers (also called Terracotta Warriors). It is known as the 8th wonder of the world and is an interesting story...

During the Qin dynasty, Emperor Qin wanted his mausoleum to be protected by these 'fake' soldiers made out of clay. There is estimated to be more than 8,000 of them (thousands maybe even? Lots to be unearthed). Most of them face east the mausoleum to 'protect'him and the direction that Qin thought threats would come, but the ones facing each other are the poor people that were to pray and not fight. I think it was all built around 246BC. Then the next dynasty comes along and totally trashes it - cuts off the heads of the soldiers and destroys the place. Its speculated to be 2200 years old! Crazy, huh? Flashforward to the 1970's (can you imagine how much time that is that lapsed in the meantime?!?!) when China was going through a major drought and were digging irrigation wells to get water. The leader of the village digs out a soldiers head (this is all underground by the way). What the? Sooo there you have it. The underground Teracotta army discovered. Then there is this story that the people of Xi'an were superstitious and thought he was somehow evil because of this discovery and exiled him from that region. Xi'an became more and more famous because of this great discovery and President of France in the 70's was going to come visit and he wanted to meet the man who discovered it. So then he was allowed back to be the leader of the region and finally became recognized as the man who discovered the Terracotta Warriors and of course subsequently became famous. The President also asked for him to sign something and people say that although he is 90 or something, he still comes to the site and some lucky tourists have him sign an autograph for them. We didn't see him, unfortunately (if it is really him). There are 3 pits that are open to the public to view the soldiers. It is really amazing but a LOT of work to do the excavation and to put the soldiers body pieces together. It must be an archeologists dream come true to do something like this. The biggest pit has 2000 of these pottery warriors (soldiers) and horses in a space of 4000 meters. They think there are still a couple of thousand of these soldiers that still need to be 'unearthed.' They also have tons of crafts like arrows, spears, crossed bars, carved knives, etc. Its amazing that its mostly in-tact, just fragmented. That clay sure holds up well! But good thing it was buried for all these years!

Other than that, back to the Haze of Glory, the weather has been crap, I'm sorry to say. It rained the whole day yesterday, and today it is pretty chilly. We gave ourselves the day-off to ride our bikes around the famous wall that encloses the city (what is within this wall is called the 'downtown' and whats on the outside is called the suburbs). It is the best preserved ancient wall in the whole world. It was fun, but cold and even the work-out biking mildly warmed us up. It took us about an hour and a half to bike around the whole thing, and all and all, it was pretty nice to ride along the wall. The other thing Xi'an is known for is its towers built during the Ming dynasty. The Bell Tower is by where we are staying and it was built in 1344. As with the name, there is a giant bell inside and it is rung when there is an emergency. Here is a pict of it:

Then there is the Drum Tower, that, surprise surprise, has drums on the different levels. They are both actually really cool and are special to China for the wood that it is made out of. There is also The Great Mosque, the oldest, largest, and best preserved Islamic mosque in China. Funny enough, I think we are a bit worn out from all these things we are seeing and instead of going to see it and pay yet another entrance fee, we instead (twice) ended up walking around the market area and shopped for little souveneirs and stuff. Eh, what can you do?

China is interesting because, no offense to it, but the smog and the dirt take away from the beautiful things that are here. There are definitely amazing things to see, but when its enclosed in haze and fog, it somehow takes a different effect. So this hazy, overcast weather is getting kind of wearing. Yesterday we decided to go Western and hang out at our hostel (which ended up being super fun because we met all these cool travellers) and had pizza. Gasp! I know, I know, but really, I needed it! My stomach has been randomly aching and cramping from all this oil and grease and I just was craving 'normal' food. Up till now, we have made a point to go to local restaurants for places to eat. Most of the time we have been lucky and gotten delicious meals, but a few times it hasn't worked out, which is all a part of the experience. So as most travellers do, we treat ourselves on occasion with things like pizza (which is a different form of oil and grease, but it sure tasted good!). We are definitely going to be back to the 'roughing' it now because we are next going to some small towns.

So wherever you are, please send me sun vibes! Maybe I'll feel it through you and it will brighten my day!

Here's a map of my travels so far to Xi'an: