Today we went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. To get there,
we had to take a subway to the city wall’s north gate, walk to the railway
station, and take a bus from there all the way to the Terra Cotta Warriors Site.
It’s an hour-long bus ride, and Ada slept through most of it.
The Terra Cotta Warriors are not to be confused with the Panna
Cotta Warriors, which is Jamie Oliver’s blog’s name, a review some idiot made on
TripAdvisor, and a project Julia and I have decided to pursue at some point. For
that, we’ll need to make small molds that look like warriors, and wouldn’t you
know it, but they sell figurines of them at the railway stations – three pieces
for 10 Yuan. We decided to get a pack on the way back.
The site is basically 3 pits where the warriors were found. They
were built to guard Emperor Qin, the first emperor of China, in the afterlife. The
main pit is the famous one, and the thousands of life-size clay people are really
impressive:
The thousands of life-size real people who come to see them
are not that impressive. They shove, speak loudly on their phones, and just act
like assholes. Multiple times we were blocked by people who stood behind us when
we were looking at down at the pit, and would not move to let us out, even
after we asked them repeatedly. When this happens, I just start walking, regardless
of what’s in my way. One of the very few advantages of getting old is that the nice
belly I developed keeps me cushioned as I trample old Chinese women.
The second and third pits have very few exposed warriors, since
most of them are still buried under the petrified ceiling. After we saw them, we
went to the restaurant for lunch – we’ve decided to try to be better about
getting Ada to eat and nap on her regular schedule, since yesterday we completely
messed up her schedule and paid for that by having a very fussy child.
Lunch was a very confusing buffet, and in the middle of lunch,
Ada had a blowout. She hadn’t had one in a while, so that caught us completely unprepared.
Most dramatic was the absence of spare pants. We improvised something from my plaid
shirt. There’s a reason these were so popular in the 90’s: they were very versatile.
They were like towels from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, but for kids
who hitchhiked to rock festivals. On Earth.
Right after lunch Ada fell asleep right after it, and we got
to see the last part of the museum, which is the exhibition hall.
We had some time, so we took a shuttle to Lishan park, where
the emperor is buried. It was a huge disappointment, since there’s nothing to
see. The tomb itself was not excavated, and all the other sites around it – more
pits and burial sites – were all closed off. That was really annoying because
the way it’s advertised, on the brochures and with the shuttles and everything,
you’d think there’s stuff to see. Only when you see the unmanned ticketing
station you start to suspect. All this walking around got Ada really bored and antsy,
and we were bored and antsy as well. On our way out we stopped at the visitor center,
in which there’s a small museum and a gift shop – all still under construction.
We were really annoyed, and to add to that, Ada completely lost it.
On the way out a woman
was selling one of those kits of Terra Cotta Warriors figurines. It was a
little nicer than the ones we saw at the railway station, and it cost the same,
so we got it. Then Julia suggested that we take a taxi back to save Ada from
all the hassle of transferring between different modes of transportation. Next
to where the taxis were picking up passengers, we were approached by someone
who only later we realized was one of those illegal taxi drivers. He offered to
take us home for 120 Yuan. This meant that we would not go back to the railway station,
so I pointed out to Julia how smart I was to get the figurines.
The ride was hard for Julia. Ada fell asleep on her, so her neck
and back were getting stiff, the temperature in the car was too high, she has
still not completely recovered from whatever is making her feel not so great,
and to top it off, the driver kept making mistakes, causing the ride go in circles
around our hotel. Eventually, we just told him to stop, and we walked the rest
of the way home, which was really only a few minutes away.
At our hotel, we regrouped, and left for dinner. We walked down
an alley that’s close to our hotel and found a small restaurant. We got a local
dish made of eggplants and green beans, a dish of mustard leaves and garlic,
and another dish that for lack of a better description, I would call it “mangled
chicken”. For this picture, I remove the foot and the band sawed in half head
of the chicken from the pot:
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