Yesterday I woke up and walked over to the north gate to the city and went up to the top of the city wall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_wall_of_Xi'an). Up there I rented a bike ($3) and biked the 8 mile circumference. Everyone was very friendly and would wake or say hello as you rode by. It was a pretty intertesting city wall, since the gates have a large courtyard area between an outerwall and an inner wall, which lets the defenders attack invaders as they tried to enter the city. And the bike ride was definitely fun.
After the bike ride, I walked to the train station and found the bus to the terracotta warriors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_warrior) in the back ($1 for an hour ride). I am always nervious with buses when I can't speak the language (who knows where they might go) but this destination is pretty obvious. I arrived at the site, and there was a bout a 1 mile stretch of tourist shops I had to pass before getting to the site. I was approached by a english speaking tourguide so I hired the tourguide ($15) and got a very interesting 2.5 hour tour. As an added bonus the farmer who first discovered the warriors was signing books in the store! Anyway, what can I say about this site. Even with the mass of people there (25,000 or so? damn holiday week) the experience is amazing. The level of detail is incredible. Each warrior is unique. What impressed me was there was even a seen of the officers making the sacrafice they would have done before a battle. Wow.
I think I was almost as popular as the warriors as people occasionally wanted to come and take a photo with me. Its fun being exotic!
Last night there were these local teenagers hanging around the hostal wanting to practice there english. So I chatted with them for a while. I still can't communicate in chinese. I am really not sure I can even hear the 4 tones....
