Steve and Cathy's Blog

5:30am. Br-r-r-n-g-g-g! B-r-r-n-g-g-g! This is your wake up call.

And they’re off!!!   The Xi’an – Beijing Oceania race continues! Cathy, of course, is already awake and slacker Steve sleeps in until the wake up call. Cathy comes up with the morning plan. In order to avoid the less punctual of our fellow tourists, the Knights will be the very first ones down in the lobby and check out no later than 6:15. Then we will leave our luggage at the instructed location, go have breakfast, and be ready to board at the appointed time of 7:15.

The plan goes perfectly. We are pleasantly surprised to see others coming down by 6:30. This bodes well. Cathy asks and is directed to an ATM as well. Things are going great. Asian breakfast is something Cathy loves: fish, rice, noodles, all kinds of stuff that a normal American has for dinner.   Steve finds the comfort food like bacon, eggs, pancakes.

We all do get our act together and are on our way. It will take over an hour to get through the city and out to where the Terracotta Warriors and Horses (this is the term that Rainbow uses to describe the attraction) are. In the meantime, she gives us a lot of information about China, Xi’an and the exhibit.   Here we go into our patented Random Fact mode:

• Xi’an means Peaceful (an) and West (Xi). It is the 8^th largest city in the country.
• There are presently 9 million people in the city, but she casually mentions that it will probably be 10 million within a decade. Can you imagine any city in the northeastern U.S. gaining population at that rate?
• Xi’an was the ancient capital 3,000 years ago during the Zhou dynasty (1050-256 B.C.E. This was China’s bronze age, which preceded the Bronze Age in the western world by hundreds of years.
• Confucius also lived sometime during the Zhou dynasty. (That seems like just a stray fact, but I put it in because Confucianism is widely followed in China).
• As she can tell that we are all awestruck by the number of gigantic apartment buildings, Rainbow discusses housing. There is public housing, in that the government builds the housing. Most of it, however, is private investment coming from all over the county and outside. She tells me that there are thousands and thousands of people who have become extremely wealthy being in the real estate development industry. Looking around, you can believe it.
• Xi’an real estate is expensive, but nothing compared to, say, Beijing. A typical 2-bedroom apartment is around 90 square metres, or 950 square feet, small indeed by western standards. In Xi’an, that would sell for US$3,000 to 5,000 per square metre. That computes to US$270,000 to 450,000. That is chump change compared to Beijing or Shanghai. In those locales, the demand for housing is such that a 100 square metre apartment sells for US$800,000 to 1,600,000, or US$8,000 to 16,000 per square metre – or $800 to 1,600 per square foot.

We arrive around 815 AM at the huge park that has been built for this exhibit , which is perfect. The park opens at 8:30, so Rainbow leaves us outside the ticket building and retrieves our tickets. We will be the first ones entering the park, and that will give us ample opportunity to see everything. The weather is perfect – sunny and getting warmer. It will be 85 degrees by the time we leave the park.

We begin our walk. As I said, the place is huge. By the end of today, Cathy and I will have walked 4.2 miles, and easily 75% of that distance was within the park. Rainbow is concerned that we have enough time to see the main exhibits, so she hustles right along. It takes about a half an hour of walking (and riding in a tram) to get to the first building.

There is so much to say about this magnificent archeological find, so we are going to start with some facts that I ripped off of the China Highlights website, which summarizes what we are seeing. I will than add what Rainbow also told us:

1. It is one of the top archaeological finds of the 20th century. The Terracotta Army is part of the world’s largest ancient imperial tomb complex, Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum. About 8,000 different life-size statues have been uncovered. The statues are 5’8” to 6’ tall. Every one differs in gestures and facial expressions, some even with color showing. It reveals much about the Qin Empire’s technology, military, arts, culture, and military.

2. It was constructed over 2,200 years ago. The Terracotta Army was created by China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who began the construction of the army in 246 BC after he (then aged 13) ascended the throne. It was an afterlife army for Emperor Qin. It was believed that objects like statues could be animated in the afterlife.
3. The Terracotta Army Museum currently mainly consists of three pits and an exhibition hall of bronze chariots:

• Pit 1: It is the largest and most impressive (about 230 x 60 m) — the size of an airplane hangar. There are over 6,000 terracotta figures of soldiers and horses, but less than 2,000 are on display.
• Pit 2: It is the highlight of the vaults (about 96 x 84 m) and uncovers the mystery of the ancient army array. It has the most army units with archers, chariots, mixed forces, and cavalry
• Pit 3: It is smallest, but very important (21 x 17 m). There are only 68 terracotta figures, and all of them are officials. It represents the command post.
• The Exhibition Hall of the Bronze Chariots: It contains the world’s largest and most intricate ancient bronze artifacts. Each carriage had about 3,400 parts and 1,234 kg. There were 1,720 pieces of golden and silver ornaments, weighting 7 kg, on each carriage.

4. It’s not just soldiers. Since the discovery of the Terracotta Army, more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses have been uncovered. Terracotta musicians, acrobats, and concubines have also been found in recent pits as well as some birds, such as waterfowl, cranes, and ducks. It is believed that Emperor Qin wanted exactly the same grand services and treatment for his afterlife.
5. Over 750,000 laborers took 38 years to complete the statues. Construction of the Terracotta Warriors began in 246 BC, when Qin Shi Huang assumed the Qin State throne, and ended in 206 BC, 4 years after Qin’s death, when the Han Dynasty began.
6. It was discovered by local farmers. The Terracotta Army remained untouched underground for more than 2,200 years and was discovered by chance by local farmers while digging a well in 1974 in Xi’an. This discovery prompted Chinese archaeologists to investigate, revealing the greatest archaeological site in China.
7. Amazingly, no two figures are exactly alike. Each warrior has unique facial features. The infantry, archers, generals, and cavalry are different in their expressions, clothing, and hairstyles.

8. What has been unearthed is probably just the start. Currently, there are four pits in total, and from three of them terracotta figures have been unearthed. The army is only part of a garrison in Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum, which covers nearly 56 square kilometers. Most of it remains unearthed. Excavation and restoration of terracotta figures is ongoing.

Rainbow fills us in on other information. I present it here in as organized a fashion as I can:

• The Chinese are using the Italian term terracotta to describe the material used. In Italian, that means “fired clay.”
• Emperor Qin is considered the first emperor of China. At the time of his ascension to the throne, there were seven kingdoms. He managed to defeat the other six kingdoms and merge them into one.
• There is written material about Qin’s tomb, but no information as to where it actually was, hence the accidental discovery by farmers digging a well in 1974. But the writing does indicate that there are 180 pits, of which only three have been opened. The entire tomb and surrounding pits occupy an area of 22 square miles.
• The actual tomb has not been opened because officials do not believe that they presently have the technology needed to fully protect what they expect to find from damage. The thousands of statues that were uncovered actually had a painted lacquer exterior, which deteriorated very quickly in the air.
• Each statue was covered in lacquer, and then with paint pigment in one of twelve colors. Each one was created by a craftsman who signed his name on the sole of the foot of each soldier.   Some were royal craftsmen; other were just recruited from the population.
• The soldiers were built larger than the actual size of people of that time period, as people then wished to be bigger than they were.
• Rainbow repeats this statistic many times, so I will state it here: it took the labor of 750,000 people working 38 years to build this complex. When you think of all that effort, and that there are still 177 more pits to unearth, the mind reels at the possibilities of what will be found. With good reason, everyone in China is extremely excited at what might ultimately be found.
• They have also found heavy traces of mercury in the soil around the tomb. It is estimated that 300 tons of this metal was used to represent rivers.
• China calls itself the Middle Kingdom because it is the place between heaven and earth. I am not at all sure what that means, but it will be worth looking up sometime.

We go to Pit 1 first, where most of the work has been done, and spend around forty-five minutes there. We leave there mesmerized. We wander past the building we were just in to another building that houses an enormous gift shop where you can buy hugely expensive replicas of what we have seen, as well as many other birds and mammal sculptures.

We still have some time, so Rainbow suggests we go to Pit 2 and Pit 3. They are smaller, and the archeological work there has just begun in comparison to Pit 1, but it does give us an understanding of that this is an immense project that will continue for decades.

Rainbow marshals her troops and we start the long walk back to the bus. Time is of the essence, as we have an hours drive to the airport for our 12:20PM flight to Beijing. If we screw this up and miss the flight, we will not see the Great Wall later today. This is when some of the disadvantages of traveling in a group come to light.

We won’t dwell on the negatives because that’s not what we wish to remember about our journey, but people are people, and their, let’s say kindly, “idiosyncrasies” can start to grate, especially on a trip like this one with such a tight schedule loaded with can’t miss deadlines. Some people had mobility issues, and by that we mean that they shouldn’t have been on this trip. One woman was on an electric scooter, and the battery went dead as we were rushing to get the bus to the airport. Did we not think to charge the damn thing up the night before?

Some people cannot handle anything less than perfection from the guides and the staff of the travel agency planning the trip. There were some eye-rolling moments of true embarrassment at the entitled attitude of a couple of the people we were traveling with when they got all snippy because a couple of elements didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked.

Suffice it to say that, while we saw some very cool behavior and some very accommodating attitudes, we also experienced some “I would like to strangle you!” moments as well.

Well, moving on… We hop on the bus and our driver expertly pilots us through Xi’an traffic and we arrive at the airport at 11:30, exactly when we had to. And the travel agency had already secured boarding passes for us, so we didn’t have to check in with the airline. Furthermore, the luggage that we had placed in the hotel lobby had been picked up by courier, brought to the airport ahead of time, and was already loaded on our plane. Excellent work! So once we got through airport security (which is beyond thorough – they wand everyone), we went right to the gate and boarded.

Our flight was on Air China, and our aircraft was an Airbus A321, a larger plane than that from the previous day. All forty-four of us Oceania passengers were grouped together in the middle of the plane. Steve and Cathy got to sit together, and Steve sat next to ATW passenger Ed who everybody on board likes. The flight was uneventful, and they did serve us lunch. That was kind of interesting; sort of a blend of cultures. The meal consisted of a cold hot dog in a roll and wasabi-coated soybean nuts. Cathy just wasn’t ready for cold hot dogs, so Steve at them both.

We are due in Beijing at 4:15pm, and we would have made it on time except for a little weather issue. It might have been a beautiful day in Xi’an, but it was freezing cold and windy (called “unseasonably cold”) in Beijing. On our approach, our plane caught some significant wind sheer just as we were to land, severe enough for the pilot to abort the landing and head back up into the clouds.

Not a word from the pilot, or the cabin crew. Nothing. We just spent the next twenty minutes wondering what was next. Finally we began descending and saw that we were still going to land in Beijing. We touched down, we foreigners all clapped, and the plane taxied to the gate. Michael the guide led his flock through the airport and on to Green Bus 1. The first thing we noticed: Wow, what a change in the weather. It’s cold and damp. Now we have a ninety-minute ride up into the mountains to Badaling to visit the Great Wall of China.

It’s not a tough drive. Traffic isn’t as bad as you would expect for this time of day, but it is a 43-mile uphill climb out of Beijing. About fifteen minutes before we are scheduled to arrive, we see that it is … yes, snowing. We are set to meet all the rest of the Around The World guests at the Great Wall, and it is snowing!   We learn later that it is the first snow to fall on Beijing and the Great Wall at Badaling since 1988! Cathy and Steve and their mysteriously bad travel weather karma have struck again.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from History.com to introduce the subject of the Great Wall: “Perhaps the most recognizable symbol of China and its long and vivid history, the Great Wall of China actually consists of numerous walls and fortifications, many running parallel to each other. Originally conceived by Emperor Qin Shi Huang (c. 259-210 B.C.) in the third century B.C. as a means of preventing incursions from barbarian nomads into the Chinese Empire, the wall is one of the most extensive construction projects ever completed. The best-known and best-preserved section of the Great Wall was built in the 14th through 17th centuries A.D., during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Though the Great Wall never effectively prevented invaders from entering China, it came to function more as a psychological barrier between Chinese civilization and the world, and remains a powerful symbol of the country’s enduring strength.

“Today, the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in history. In 1987, UNESCO designated the Great Wall a World Heritage site, and a popular claim that emerged in the 20th century holds that it is the only manmade structure that is visible from space. Over the years, roadways have been cut through the wall in various points, and many sections have deteriorated after centuries of neglect. The best-known section of the Great Wall of China–Badaling, located 43 miles (70 km) northwest of Beijing–was rebuilt in the late 1950s.”

And that’s where we arrive around 5:00pm. We disembark from the bus. To actually reach the Wall, we take an escalator to the entrance of the park and then a 10-minute cable car ride to the Wall itself. We are now at 3,000 feet above sea level. The bad news is that visibility is not good for viewing the actual extent of the Wall as it winds through the surrounding mountains. The good news is that we forty-four Oceania guests from the Xi’an trip have the place to ourselves. The weather has driven all the other tourists away, and the ATW guests that weren’t on our whirlwind tour to the Terracotta Warriors have come and gone (to the cocktail party – more on that below).

Because we are on top of a mountain, there is a lot of stair climbing after the cable car ride to reach the Wall itself. The stairs are made of steel grates, and are covered with an inch of wet, hard-packed snow. In America, this would be a lawyer’s delight, and the place would have been closed. Fortunately, we are in China, so we are allowed to explore to our heart’s content. Cathy wisely stays on one of the platforms to view the Wall. Steve, not having Cathy’s common sense, does walk up and down the Wall itself taking photographs. It is treacherous but doable. They spend about half an hour there and head back to the cable car. Then it’s down to the base, where we regroup and take a 1,500-foot walk to a restaurant where Oceania is having an event for all those that are Around The World guests.

The cocktail party was to begin at 6:00pm, and perhaps it did. We arrive around 6:25, and the party appears to be practically over. Cathy is exhausted and, after a few short minutes, heads upstairs to the venue for the dinner that will follow this cocktail party. Steve chats with Tim Newton and a couple of others, and we are all asked to do the same. Our intention was to seek out Barbara and Brian O’Dell and Helma and Rich Rosenthal and all sit together. However, the table assignments had been prearranged by which bus we traveled on, so we sit with others.

The meal itself, strangely enough, is not all that great. There are lots of different Chinese dishes, all served family style on a large Lazy Susan in the center of our table for ten. The quality of the food is not up to Oceania standards, we are sorry to say, and the service is a bit inconsistent. Perhaps we are so spoiled on our ship that we expected too much. Nevertheless, we enjoy ourselves and the company we are with. The meal lasts about an hour, at which time we board good old Green Bus 1 for the trip down to Beijing.

An hour later, around 9:30pm, we arrive at the Westin Financial Center Hotel. Our guide Michael hands out the room keys (thankfully, we are pre-registered) and advises us that tomorrow’s tour will begin at 8:15am. This is a very fine hotel, and certainly has all the five-star amenities to enjoy that you would expect. We could care less. We are bushed, and the best amenity – a huge soft bed – awaits. It has been a great day. As Cathy has said to many of the people we talk with on the ship, it isn’t often that you can see two of the world’s most famous architectural treasures – the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall – in the same day. And two more famous places to visit tomorrow morning. We had better sleep fast.