Our Trip
If you’re traveling to China you need to make time to visit Xi’an in Shaanxi Province.
We visited Xi’an in November of 2008 and it was pretty cold! But, it was also not crowded so we could see everything we wanted to see without being rushed. This was an amazing, eye opening experience into China’s history and culture. I wanted to wait one more year to experience this so Sophie would find it interesting but the timing was such that last week worked out much better for us. So after 3 days of touring temples, ancient villages and warriors, both kids came back with a little more Chinese history then the day before. Sean really enjoyed it and learned quite a lot, but he’s always found the warriors fascinating. Sophie did alright picking a 6000+ year old village as her favorite part of the trip.
We spent two days there and stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel in Xi’an. It’s an expensive hotel as we had to get 2 rooms for all four of us but worth it to come back after freezing outside while site-seeing. The buffet was not very kid friendly but Sean talked the chef into making a killer cheese pizza. They both devoured it as did Scott and I after discovering it was better than anything on the buffet!
Our first stop was an over-the-top Tang Dancing show put on for the tourist where both kids proceeded to fall asleep. A dinner was included in the price and it was pretty bad too. I guess next time we’ll skip this!
The next day we biked on the City Wall. The inner part of the city still has 9 miles (14 km) of the old city wall surrounding the old, inner-city of Xi’an – this wall is an offspring from the Ming Dynasty and replaced the original wall from the Tang Dynasty. Parts of the 40 foot (12-metre) thick walls are open to the public. We walked along the wall and rented bicycles to ride with the kids. It was amazing to stand on the watch towers and imagine what it must have been like thousands of years ago – knowing that at any time armies could come en-mass across the horizon ready to attack your homeland.
Another highlight of our trip was a visit to the Shaanxi History Museum. This museum has clear and attractive displays arranged in chronological order and labeled in English. In addition to terracotta warriors and horses it has a great collection of Ming and Qing pottery as well as pottery from the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages.
Last but not least we stopped by the Large Goose Pagoda on our way out. This temple was built to house the Buddhist scriptures brought back from India. It’s a large part of Xi’an but once we’d seen everything else we didn’t spend much time here. Instead we headed to the gift shop for our Xi’an treasures!
Fun Facts & Tips
During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Xi’an was the largest city in the world and was linked to many central Asia regions and Europe via the Silk Road. For more than 1,100 years Xi’an served as the capital of China through 13 imperial dynasties. Today, Xi’an has approximately 7.5 million residents – a smaller city by Chinese standards.
Two to three days is plenty of time to spend in Xi’an.
Make sure to take copious notes as you’ll forget a lot of it once you get home.
Excavations are still happening today as they have re-entered the first and largest pit expecting to find at least 6,000 more terracotta figures.
Scott trying to get the guard at the City Wall to laugh.
We were in two small car accidents while we were there, both handled the same way. After each accident both drivers got out of the car screaming at each other appearing to start serious battle, while spectators pulled them apart. Meanwhile the passersby would stop and add their 2 cents until a huge crowd gathered. After about 20 minutes one driver took out his wallet and paid another driver 150 RMB ($22.00) to cover the cost to fix the van and then the drivers got back in their respective cars and drove off. Within minutes our driver was back to his old self laughing and joking around with our guide. So, no changing of insurance cards, no police and both drivers left satisfied that they had successfully told the other one off. All for the bargain price of $22.00! I think there is something to be said for that.
Welcome to Xi'an, China
We, like everyone else that goes to Xi’an, wanted to see the infamous terracotta warriors discovered there in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. The warriors buried over 2700 years ago were said to be guarding the tomb of Qin Shihuang – the first emperor of China. They are located 1.5 km away from his actual burial site.
Emperor Qin was obsessed with death and of finding the secret to immortality. But, unfortunately he died at the young age of 50. He was then buried in a huge mausoleum 35 km east of Xi’an. Seven hundred thousand workers spent 36 years building the tomb on the orders of the 13-year-old emperor. Emperor Qin believed that life after death was just a continuation of life “above the ground” and was recorded as being buried in an underground palace with jewels, rare birds and animals, terracotta chariots and horses just to name a few. Mass graves have been unearthed depicting that Emperor Qin was fanatical about keeping his tomb a secret. He buried the labors alive and/or killed them after the construction. Although the emperor himself has not been exhumed the area around him has with fascinating insight as to the extremes he took to ensure a happy afterlife.
In the main vault the figures are arranged in typical battle formation in 11 columns comprised of officers, soldiers holding spears and swords, and others riding in horse-drawn carriages. Each figure stands about 5’ 10” tall and each head is individually modeled with unique facial expressions. In addition, when the warriors were first discovered their cheeks were rosy and they wore painted uniforms. Exposure to the air has since turned the statues grey.
Additional vaults were discovered in 1976 and even today the true size of the archeological find is still not fully understood. Visitors can see scientists excavating soldiers. We even had the local farmer who was digging the well and discovered the treasures; sign a picture book of the history of the site.
Gift shop and they'll ship too.
Sophie’s favorite part about our trip to Xi’an was our visit to Banpo Village remains. This is a prehistoric excavation site dating back to 5000 to 3000 BC! Sophie liked the fact that the Banpo village people considered all women Gods because they bear children and were treated with the greatest respect. At that time the children knew their mothers but never their fathers, obviously monogamy was not a word back then!
Everyone enjoyed their trip to Xi’an – its one place we’d love to visit again – not because we were rushed on our tour, but because there are so many interesting and historical items of interest.