Taking full advantage of our 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms we did what anyone staying in a 5 star hotel would do with their extra bathroom; laundry. Yes we filled the sick up with water and poured a packet of laundry detergent in. I was on the washing line, scrubbing my dirty clothes, underwear and all, then Justin's. I am hoping this is as close as we get on this trip. Justin had the rinse and hang duty, standing in the tub and running the clothes under the faucet and hanging them on the shower rod. We even ran out of room on the shower rod and had to use our rope line, strung across the bathroom twice to hang everything. Nothing wrong with two dudes washing each others underwear in the sink with no shirts on... pictures coming unfortunately.
By morning the clothes were not dry, so we moved them over by the window, using our rope line again, this time tied to the desk and a doorknob. We set the Do Not Disturb sign hoping the maids wouldn't come in, fearing they may kick us out when they see clothes hanging all around the room.
At 9 this morning we met up with our tour guide for the Terracotta Soldiers and other sites of interest around Xi'an. The first stop was to the Big Goose Pagoda. Nothing to interesting here, just a 7 story pagoda and some little temples that told the story of some Buddhist guy that went to India, studied with a master, came back to China and was basically the shit. I couldn't gather everything the guide was saying, but that is the story I am sticking with. The one interesting thing about the pagoda was they were having a ceremony for the quake victims. So they had lots of monks set up facing the pagoda all chanting and praying together. I got a quick video of them that I will put up when I can.
After the pagoda was a trip to the porcelain factory. Supposedly it is the official factory for making Terracotta soldier replicas. They gave us a 5 minute tour of how the soldiers are made and how the porcelain pots are made, then funneled us into the show room and gave us the hard sell. I relented eventually and got a 7-8 inch General statue and a porcelain piggy bank for Annie. Justin splurged, having not bought anything in Japan, and got a 15 inch soldier. I guess it can keep the lawn gnome company in Charlotte.
After the factory we loaded up for the Terracotta soldiers. There are 3 separate pits for viewing, each within a building or hanger. The first pit is massive and has the most standing soldiers. Apparently almost all of them are in pieces and they have to put them back together before putting them in line. The sheer number of the soldiers is pretty impressive as is some of the detail work done on them. We walked around, snapped some pictures and headed to the next pit. It was not quite as impressive, still in excavation and not many soldiers restored. The third pit was again pretty massive but not well excavated either. It did have glassed in examples of each of the solider types as well as some of the weapons. After the pits we watched a movie about the Emperor that created all of this and how they came to be found. The video was forgettable, probably made 25 years ago. The old man that discovered the soldiers is still there, signing books that cost way to much. Unfortunately we could not get a picture with him.
After the Terracotta warriors it was off to Banpo Village or some other name I don't care to remember. It was basically another 1880s town, except this one was supposed to be 6000 year old sun worshippers. Color me uninterested. Looking at holes in the ground that they say are houses doesn't get my engine going. At this point in the day it was close to 100 degrees and we had been at it for about 6 hours. Everyone was getting a little tired we we made our last stop at the East Gate of the wall. Xi'an is the only city in China that still has its old city wall still intact. We climbed to the top of the East Gate, looked around, saw our hotel from the top and everyone agreed it was time to leave, especially our German tour mates (the German guy basically called Justin and I girls when he asked what German beers we liked. The only non crap beer from there I know is George Schnieder Edelweiss to which he replied "that is not real beer, it is Bavarian"). We all loaded up, headed back to the Hyatt and into our room.
To our horror the maids had come through the room, folding some of the clothes and making the beds. I can't imagine what they thought when they came into the room. Good news for us is they did not kick us out. Bad news is the maids closed the blinds so the clothes got no sunlight and are still damp. Hopefully that works itself out before we jump on the train tomorrow for Shanghai.
