Xi'an Day 10 Terracotta Warriors

Since we had booked a tour with the hostel all we had to do was wake up early and be ready to leave at 9am. The Hantang House was fantastic. The rooms and adjoining bathroom were amazing.

Anyway, after a nice breakfast, musli and cappuccino, we were rounded up by a little Asian women named Jiajun (I think).

She bossed us around and got us to follow her around like little ducklings. We joked around with the others on the tour about this and it served as entertainment until we got to the museum.

All in all it was pretty impressive, but just like the Forbidden City I think the whole thing would have been more impactful if there hadn't been so many people around constantly taking selfies. Uhhh!!!

For lunch we had some standard Chinese food which tasted about average. After, we got to sample some tea which tasted fantastic! The woman gave a cool demo and explained what each tea should be used for.

The tour bus stopped by some tomb that had not been opened because of high concentrations of mercury and superstition.

We got back to the hotel, cleaned up and went to go find a place to eat. We took some pictures of a tower in the center of Xi'an and got stopped by a bunch of college kids who said they were doing a test and need to practice their English with a foreigner. These college kids looked like they were about 15. I got a mini Chinese lesson from one of the girls I was talking to, yet when I asked about some cultural things I had noticed that seemed specific to China they couldn't understand what I was asking.

After what seemed like an hour I broke off the conversation and rounded up the guys so we could find a place to eat. Walking toward and through the Muslim district was a very cool experience. Imagine all the street vendors and small businesses you have ever seen and put them all in one little area and add what seemed like 50,000 people. Everyone was in a good mood and strolling through the street watching the noodle guys make their noodles.

Not brave enough to try the street food, we walked over to a more developed area and found a neat Chinese restaurant. The waitress did not speak any English and tried very admirably to communicate with us. We had forgotten that you share meals in China and that one person usually orders for all. They brought out everything we ordered except for some duck I wanted to try. They didn't send anyone by our table after that. We tried calling them over multiple times but it seemed we were being shunned. Not wanting to cause a scene we got up, paid our bill, and left.

Wanting to drink a bit before going back to the hostel we found a cool area which had a bunch of bars on one street. Here we ended up ordering a beer tower. Three liters of beer to share.

On the way back the walkway underneath the main intersection we had to cross was closed and there were tons of gates which deterred people from crossing the street. Take one guess as to what we did. Yup! We crossed anyways. No one seemed to mind.