Touring Xi'an

Local transportation

Today Bernard’s parents hired a car and driver (400 Yuan for the day – about USD$60) to take us around Xi’an to see some of the major sites. So after a buffet breakfast at the hotel (all sorts of traditional Chinese breakfast items) we piled into the minivan to begin our tour.

Outside the Banpo Village site

First stop was the Banpo Village. It was a village that was discovered in 1953 and is about 6000 years old. The uniqueness of this village stems from the fact that it was populated by a matriarchal society.

Statue of a matriarch

Once a girl turned 13, she was free to choose her mate, and the relationships often lasted only a few days to a few months.

Terracotta warriors #1

Terracotta warriors #2

The next stop was to see the famous Terra Cotta warriors. This exhibit lives up to it's reputation. It is pretty cool to see them in person and is hard to fathom how much work went into creating all of the warriors. Each one is unique and there are almost 10,000 of them.

Terracotta horse (sorry it's fuzzy!)

Both the warriors and horses are lifesize and the details are very intricate. The sites are very well maintained and are equally impressive.
Our final stop was to the Shaanxi Museum of History. On the way, we asked the driver to find us a clean place to eat that had good noodles.

Noodle lunch at a "clean" restaurant

Well, we got one out of two. The noodles were great but the restaurant wasn't so clean. Everyone just threw their bones and trash on the floor. It really wasn't that bad but it was funny to see what a local definition of "clean" was!
The Shaanxi Museum of History was very interesting as well and there were a lot of old artifacts from 2000 B.C. onward. We got through a couple of dynasties worth of artifacts before we had to stop for a break. We picked up a few drinks and sat down and decided that we were all too tired to continue on. So we just went back to the hotel, rested a bit, ate at the hotel restaurant and crashed.