Tuesday, 19 Nov 2024

We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then met up with Lina (the tour guide) to start our tour for the day.

Our main agenda for the day was to visit the Terracotta Warriors Museum. It was about an hours drive from the hotel. As we arrive, I noticed the museum complex was vast. Given that it was off peak and winter, the crowds weren’t so big. Don’t get me wrong, by normal global standards it is “a lot of people”, but in China, it’s considered “less crowds”.

The museum complex was grouped in various pits (as in excavation pits). We started with pit number 1.

Pit number 1 is the main exhibition hall. Prior to visiting Xi’an, I watched the Netflix documentary called Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors. It was from that detailed documentary I learnt the terracotta warriors was destroyed just after it was completed (~209 BCE) due to fighting between the slaves that built the mausoleum and the Qin army.

We continued on to excavation pits 2 and 3. These pits give you a feel of how the excavation was done and the condition of how the warriors were initially discovered.

The last exhibition was the museum where the best preserved warriors were shown and a replica of the initial colours of the warriors uniform were displayed. They were actually quite colourful!

For lunch, Lina took us to a small town next to the Terracotta Warriors Museum complex. There were various restaurants and gift shops in the area.

The restaurant served halal food, mainly dishes from the Xinjiang province. It was very delicious. I especially like the round bread with the meat and vegetable fillings.

We also bought some local Xi’an snacks from the restaurant for people back home.

After lunch, as part of our tour, we participated in a make-your-own terracotta warrior class. It was basically a simple clay art class. I have better appreciation for the art after making one myself. It is a amazing how these pieces of art can last thousands of years!

Later in the afternoon, Lina took us to Northwest Wholesale Mall. This visit is part of the tour package and she wanted to show us a mall that sells local goods. We were not in the mood for shopping so we just sat down and had coffee. I took the time to give the place a quick tour.

In the evening, my parents were quite tired so we ordered pizza at the hotel. To my surprise, room service was delivered using a robot! The robot navigated itself from the ground floor, into the lift, all the way to my room on the 7th floor. How fascinating is that!

Related posts: China 2024 part 1, part 2, part 3