Xi'an

After spending three hours in a very crowded and smoke filled airport lobby at Xhang Jia Jie (although the sign said no smoking, smoking seems to be tolerated everywhere in China, even inside an elevator), we were happy to escape and hop on a plane to Xi’an. It was late at night when we boarded the plane (only one flight per day to Xi’an). Although the flight lasted only an hour, by the time we checked into the hotel, it was already past 1:00 AM. When we got up early the next morning, it was raining pretty hard. We had been lucky with the weather so far but the rain finally caught up with us in Xi’an. Fortunately, our first stop was the location of Terracotta soldiers, which was under a large hanger size structure.

Being the capital city of the Qin Dynasty (pronounced as “Jin” in Korean), Han Dynasty, and later Tang Dynasty, Xi’an is a city rich with history. Terracotta soldiers and horses in all unique life-like shapes and sizes guarded a mausoleum of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang (not all were excavated for preservation due to almost instantaneous oxidation that erases all pigmented colors from the terracotta and causes rusting of all shiny metal when unearthed). Also in the museum were displays of metallurgy and pottery. The technology was well advanced for their time (more than 2200 years ago, they knew how to chrome plate metal). Like the great Pyramid, it seems that somehow the Chinese lost the technological know-how and the knowledge was not passed onto future generations (US & Germany developed chrome plating in 1900’s).

Afterwards, we moved on to the site of mausoleum itself. It seems that the first Qin emperor was obsessed with wanting to live forever. After becoming the first emperor to unify China into an imperial empire, he felt that the only thing missing was immortality. There were many symbolisms of longevity surrounding him including the number nine and his chariot designed with a roof in the shape of a turtle for example. Despite all that, he did not even live past 50!

The last stop on our tour was a palace with hot springs famous for one of the four beautiful ladies in the history of China, Yang Gufei (Yang Guibi in Korean pronunciation). We could witness the measure of her beauty now and then when we saw the paintings and heard the descriptions of the lady. She was rather plump but supposedly had such beautiful skin. A great Chinese poet at the time after witnessing her described her skin as being so pure and translucent, that one could even see her food go down after she swallowed it.

No photos of Xi'an. Our guide said he would email us the photos taken with his camera but haven't arrived yet.