Aaiysha, Toby, Marc, and any other friends with asthma... pay special attention to this entry and heed my warning: STAY AWAY FROM XIAN.
We touched down at night in Xian, so we didn't notice from the plane that the entire city is obscured by the densest fog any of us had ever seen. When we stepped off the plane, I was convinced that a massive wildfire was raging just half a kilometer away or something. I asked Linda, our Xian guide and airport transfer, if there was a fire and she just looked puzzled. I mentioned the smoke and the smell and she told me that most of the locals and factories use coal as a source of fuel. Right after she answered me, my mom walked up and asked, "Is there a fire?"
Linda seemed really nonchalant about the level of pollution. She remarked a couple of times, "Well, you have pollution in Los Angeles, too, right?" Uhh... I don't know what the government of China has been telling these people, but I think the only place in Los Angeles that is as smoggy as Xian is just above a smokestack.
The next morning, we were able to get the full impact of the smog. My dad began coughing (a cough that would last several days past our stay in Xian). My skin started freaking out. We all felt cruddy. Looking up at the sky, instead of the sun you could only see a vague pinkish blob behind a cloud of soot. Nasty, I tells ya.
Breakfast was funny. At some point, my dad went all Goldilocks on us and whined, "Somebody soaked these lychees in salt!" None of us paid much attention until he commented that they also tasted like onions. It was then that we looked over and saw that what he had on his plate were indeed little pearl onions. Dad, Dad, Dad...
The big sightseeing event of the day was visiting the site of the Terra Cotta soldiers. The first stop was to see an informative film (in Circle Vision!). It was truly state of the art... in 1970. It was so bad it was comical. While we were waiting for the film to start, we hung out in the gift store where the farmer who actually found the original soldier fragment has set up shop. Linda said that he became a full on capitalist after his discovery and charges for autographs and photos with him. She wasn't kidding. Right in front of him was a sign letting us know that there are to be no unauthorized photographs of him. The soldiers themseves were overwhelming. There were SO MANY of them... three big pits. The detail on some of them was incredible: lines on the palms of the hands, individual hairs, patterns on the soles of the shoes, individual armor plates, and even wrinkles. The hairstyles told the generals apart from the soldiers.
The soldiers were made at the request of Emperor Qin (pronounced Chin). We asked Linda who exactly made the soldiers. She said that they were made by the people he conquered. The soldiers were there to guard him in his afterlife. They actually modeled them after real soldiers. Howie and I were laughing at the idea that some poor soldier out there was like, "I can't wait for this emperor to die. It sucks working in his army." only to find out that the emperor was taking him along beyond the grave! The highlight of the site was the bronze chariots. The craftsmanship on those was perfect.
On the way home, Linda had Howie and me dropped off at a hotel where they specialize in traditional Chinese foot massage/reflexology. They set us down in these chairs and soaked our feet and gave us tea before settling in for a good hour plus of foot fun. At one point, the masseuse lady commands you to "relax" just before she scoops you up from behind and balances you on her shins and jiggles you around for a bit. Oddly enough, it actually was relaxing.
On the cab ride home, we got a glimpse of downtown Xian inside the old city walls (held together with a glue made of sticky rice and ground up stones). After our day of sightseeing we were all too sickened by the smog to set foot outside the hotel. It's a shame, too, because the city is actually very cool.
