Mike and Erin - World Adventures: June 2009

china (last one)

day 5

the last day in xian, the last day to see china, we went to see the terracotta warriors. this was pretty sweet. an empire so full of itslef it took 30 years and who knows how many people to make 6000 stone figures to bury in the ground with its emperor. after this we went to a royal hot spring/bath house where emperors and their concubines would go to soak. this is also where chiang kai shek's home was before he fled china and opened taiwan for business. it was interesting to see the all the bullet holes in his crib from when it was raided like a modern day coke lab. our last visit was to the wild goose pagoda. this was a buddhist worship temple built by a monk who traveled through 1/3 of the world to bring the scripts of buddha from india to china. massive. after all this we were on our way to train station for another over night express to beijing where we caught our plane and returned home at 3:00a.m. to go teach the next morning. then i found out i couldnt go to work for 7 days because i left the country and was considered an H1N1 health risk to all those in my work place. neat!

terracotta warriors

the true warriors

face forward

the guy sitting is one of the farmers who discovered the terracotta site...no pictures allowed, therefore i had to sneak this shot

side view

corner of the soldier pit

really skinny warrior

the faces are all different

pit 2, not as big but still has some stuff

headless soldiers

pit 3, still being dug up

soldiers that are still being repaired and pieced together

emperor hot tub

erin comandeering chaing kai sheks crib

two giant marionette pupets that were made for the olympic ceremony, they were never used so now they chill here

my concubines

my favorite soldier, the archer; he looks calm but he'd merk you without hesitation

chillin with buddha

gold plated buddha

mike and erin

wild goose pagoda

golden pirate; i dont remember who this really is...

goodbye chris!

check it out

the monk and his pagoda

this sink/sign was in the bathroom of a restaurant we went to for dinner

buddha

china (part 3)

day 4

after an excititng train ride with two chinese men who spoke little english (we learned enough chinese to hold some real simple, baby conversations with these dudes but a lot of times we had to end our discussion with 'ting bu dong' [simply: i hear you, but i dont understand]). after getting off the train at xian we were once again picked up by our new tour guide, chris. she was much better than peter and didnt waste our time with you buy it, you buy it. we went to our new digs and cleaned up a little before heading out to see the ancient city of xian. our first stop was at a museum where we learned a ridiculous amount of history regarding the city of xian. it was interesting but it was a lot of information and i can honestly say it went in one ear and out the other. after the museum we went into the city and rode a tandem bike on the surrounding wall that protects the city. we visited the heart of the ancient city, that being the bell tower, where i paid 20 yuen to ring the bell 7 times to let the people of the city know that i was there. after spending the rest of the night walking around the city seeing car accident fights, eating at a famous dumpling restaurant and struttin down a market street. we went back to our room and crashed out.

xian bell tower

our second room came fully furnished

chris picking us up

here yee here yee, fordosi is here...

our room in xian

xian at night

erin and the bell that felt my wrath

we owned the night

the car accident fight

givin the bell some love

erin huffin down dumplings

as am i

the restaurant with the crazy-long name...seriously thats the name

delicious night market meat

dumplings

China (part 2)

day 3

on day 3 we started the day off in complete waste. peter decided it would be a good idea to take to another sweet factory. this time we got to see the wonder that is how jade is made, and carved, and sold to sucker tourists. after wasting some stupid amount of time there he finally got with the progam and we went to the ming tomb. this is a mountain range where 13 emperors from the ming dynasty are buried. we were actually only able to visit one of them because thats all thats open to the public. so really what we saw was the decorated pathway (guarded by numerous animals and generals) and the one tomb. after taking pictures with numerous animals and their general counterparts, we headed to our final destination in beijing, the great wall of china. although not what we expected is was still pretty awesome to see and climb. so good in fact, that we climbed to the top of it twice. after worrying our tourguide (we were gone three hours instead of the two he allowed us, he called the police to put a search out for us...ha! thats what he gets for taking us to those stupid ass factories) we were taken to the train station to go on our very first ever train ride, overnight, from beijing to xi'an.