Trip to Xi an

This past weekend was labor day weekend and the city of Shanghai gave an extra 2 days off of work and school. We decided last minute to quickly put together a trip to Xian. ( pronounced "She on") This is where the Terracotta Worriers are located. Chris and I taught English there almost 11 years ago right after we got married and we thought it would be fun to take the kids there. We also planned to visit a friend of mine who started a foster home in Xian 4 years ago for orphaned babies needing surgery.

We caught a flight early Thursday morning and got to the hotel around lunch time. We just hung out and went swimming the rest of the day which was really nice.

We had rented a van and driver to take us to the terracotta worriers on Friday morning specifically NOT including a tour guide. We've done the tour guide thing a few times and we just wanted to do our own thing this time. After breakfast Friday, we went out front to meet our driver and who should meet us at the car?.......Bruce, our tour guide. I guess the hotel lady who booked our driver misunderstood me when I said, "I absolutely do not want a tour guide." Bruce was all jazzed up and ready to go and I just didn't have the heart to tell him we didn't want him to come with us. (big Mistake) I need to get a different heart in those situations.

Once on the road, Bruce began his "lessons" which the children gave a big rip about. Bruce was bound and determined to give us these history lessons including several out of focus picture cards depicting maps and dates and stuff. His English was OK but not good enough to keep the kids attention. He just kept talking and talking and talking............. and talking. Chris finally told him, "look Bruce, make it simple cause the kids are really bored." Then Bruce explained where we were going that day which included a lot of stops that we did not want or hadn't planned on. We told him that we didn't want to go to those places and he said that we had to because he had contracted with these places to bring tourists. That's when Chris said, "We're the ones paying you so you take us where we tell you to take us!" This is exactly why we didn't want a tour guide in the first place.



We ended up going to one of the "stops" before the Terracotta warriors because it was a place that showed how the worriers were made and we thought the kids would like that. It turned out to be a small shop where they make terracotta items and then about 4 huge stores where you had to walk through each one to get out. We beelined it through and off we went again. We had another irritating 30 min of "lessons" before we got to the worriers but we eventually got there.

The terracotta worriers are in a covered excavation sight about 1 hour outside the city. There are about 4 different excavations pits at this sight. The first pit is really amazing. It's just huge and there are just rows and rows of these clay worriers that go on and on. It's really mind boggling to think about how they made all these 2,000 years ago.

As we rounded the back of pit #1 there was a small 3 foot iron fence keeping people out. To get a good picture we sat the kids on the fence for all of about 10 seconds. The security guard came over and told our guide that we couldn't sit there and he replied that we were just taking a picture and were done. That "argument" from our guide is of course not tolerated among the holy order of security guards and we were then "detained" until his supervisor could come and assess this "unruly" group. We did our best to convince him this was no big deal but to no avail. There is a sign there that reads, "no admittance" and when the supervisor came over the guard told him that we were trying to get inside the fence because Gabe had touched his foot on the ground on the inside of the bars. He pointed at Gabe and immediately Gabe melted into tears thinking that they were yelling at him. Was this really happening? Were we being punked or something? The supervisor was as big of a jerk as the guard and made Bruce produce his "tour guide papers" for inspection. Gabe, in the mean time, was crying even louder. I was ticked and told the guy, "Thanks for giving our family such a wonderful experience! You're a really great guy!" It's just one of those things that you have to accept in China. You don't question authority and if you do they make you pay. They "flex their muscles" to keep people in line. It's like, "sure, welcome world to China.......now spread um!"

Once Sara began crying and the crowd staring at this spectacle swelled to about 50 people the guard finally let us go. Gabe was really shaken up so we went out side the building and sat on a ledge in the shade to wait for our guide who was still being detained inside. We were all really upset and to top it off all the people coming out of the building stopped to stare and take pictures of us. Yeah! 10 min later Bruce came out and we went on to the other excavation pits. The rest of the day turned out to be really enjoyable despite the rough beginning. They even had a Subway restaurant there which was really good. Then we took some fun pictures in costumes and stuff.

The next stop of the day was a place called The Wild Goose Pagoda. It was a pagoda set in a beautiful temple. We hiked to the top and got a bunch of cool pictures and explored the temple grounds. It was dinner time by the time we left so we got a quick dinner at KFC and headed back to the Hotel. Bruce, of course, talked the entire time, but we just zoned out and let him go on and on about whatever. The day really was fun even with the "guard" incident and good ole' Bruce talking our ear off all day.



The next day we headed into the city to do some more site seeing. Our first stop was the ancient city wall. Xian was the first capitol of China for about 4 dynasties and has a really cool restored city wall that dates back to the Tang dynasty about 1000, years ago. We rented a tandem bike at the top and took turns riding it around the top with Emily and Gabe. No bike accident, thank goodness! It was getting hot so we grabbed some ice cream and sat down in the shade for a bit which always turns out to be an event out in public. People are just shameless about walking up and pointing and staring and getting pictures. Sara has her "You don't exist face" down pat. Everyone wants her to smile and act like she just loves them in their pictures but she's so not playing that game. Grumpy face it is! and they can take it or leave it. We don't even try to get the kids to smile any more cause it's so uncomfortable for them. We try not to be rude but after a while we have to tell them to stop pointing in Anna's face and asking why she looks Chinese and to stop grabbing Sara cause she's scared of strangers.

Being a holiday weekend the city center became more and more crowded as the day wore on. We grabbed some lunch and luckily found a table. It wasn't quite noon so the hoards of people gathering in the city hadn't made their way inside to eat yet. When we braved the streets again there was hardly any space on the sidewalk to move. We eventually got to another historical spot called the Bell Tower smack dab in the center of the city. It too is from the Tang Dynasty and contained the city bell to warn of intruders. We went to the top and looked out where you could see all four gates in all four directions into the city down the 4 main streets. What a sight looking out at all the crowds of people down below.

The troops needed some cool refreshment after that so we grabbed some ice cream at a Haagen Daas and luckily found a space to sit there. I've never payed so much for so little in all my life but at least we were out of the heat, out of the crowds and sitting down eating ice cream. Next we went into the Muslin district. It's basically like China town in San Fransisco but it's Muslim town and it's where you find all the cheep souvenirs. We had a great time looking at all the stuff and buying some things. We bought 6 mini terracotta worriers for 10 yuan each. The place we stopped the day before to see how the worriers were made, were selling the exact same ones for 250 yuan each. Chris and I had been to the Muslim district several times before when we taught English there so we knew where to get the cheapo good stuff.

Every city has it's own customs and such as we found out when we tried to get a taxi back to the hotel at 3:00 in the afternoon. The taxis in Xian change shifts around that time and won't pick you up because they have to go to their exchange destination. So there we were with our very tired, very hot little children standing on the side of the road with a few million other people trying to catch a taxi during shift change. After 30 min with no luck we walked the kids over to a shopping mall with a McDonalds and got.............more ice cream. This time there were absolutely no seats in the two story restaurant so we found a covered stair well on the side of the building and sat on the steps to eat while a grandma, her grandchild, and a young lovey dovy couple stared at us.

We eventually found a taxi that took us back to our hotel. He tried to kick us out of the taxi once he realized how far he'd have to drive (20 min) but we weren't budging, not with the millions of others waiting for taxis out on the street. Chris just played dumb and the guy eventually gave up trying to explain why he didn't want to take us and drove to the hotel. Ignorance is bliss sometimes, or at least playing ignorant is. It was a fun, exciting, exhausting day and we were glad to go swimming, eat dinner, and then hit the hay.

That was the first three days of the trip. The last two were entirely different so I'm putting them in a different post.