Leaving Relics at the Terracotta Warriors
Xi\'an -- Wed, Jul 20, 2005

Have you ever tried to take in Ancient Chinese History, while your bowels were playing the twister with your body? Well, let's just say it wasn't the most pleasant day. I managed to "discover" every bathroom and leave a few relics of my own... Having been told that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't see the warriors -- I crawled out of bed to make the trip. Fang Wen Guang asked the bus driver if they were really so amazing and her response was "You will regret it for the rest of your life if you see them, and you will regret it for the rest of your life if you do." We learned that she added this last phrase because it costs 90RMB to see the warriors. Although this is only $11US, it can be a good part of a Chinese person's monthly salary -- it is sad when our own country people can't afford to see their own national treasures. But enough with the economics tangent. Luckily we got there early and it wasn't very busy. The long and the short is that I am going to have to disagree with the majority opinion that its "the eight wonder of the world". It's cool and the technology used to build the massive number of terracotta warriors is impressive for the time -- but its hard to put on the scale of the pyramids I think. Maybe my opinion would have been different if I had felt better. But I have seen many more impressive things in the faces of the people we have met along the tour -- but if you only have a few days in China, it might be an interesting thing (I would still rather go explore some small town, or off the beaten path streets and press my luck at getting food poisioning...) ;)