The father of one of Art’s students is a travel agent, and thanks to him we hooked up with a great driver (John; a really nice guy) for days 2 and 3 in Xi’an. He picked us up bright and early from the Hyatt to beat any crowds out to the warriors… and the first thing we saw as we headed east out of town was the Xi’an nuclear reactor plant. Sites like this are a little more intimidating these days…
Xian nuclear power. An overcast morning making this gritty side of town even more glum...
We spent a lot of time at the Warrior’s site. There’s the museum… a bunch of restaurants, more shops than necessary, an old, grainy in-the-round historical film… and of course, the three pits. The Chinese have done a lot to continually develop this tourist attraction over the years… and are still getting quite a bang out of it…
The Warriors Museum...
Personally, I suspect the museum was added solely for crowd control, but we took a quick pass through...
Nicely curated exhibits. Cant forget the clay horses and chariots buried along with the soldiers...
View of the Xian hills behind them. This really was rural farm land at one time. Now... a lot of development creeping in with condos along the road leading here...
Our tour guide welcomes us to Pit #3 (we did the pits in reverse order as recommended by Lonely Planet...)
Inside pit 3...
OK. So we went for the cheesy tourist picture. Cute though...
Pits #3 and #2 have many displays like this... here, Elle shows us the archer...
Pit #1, displayed inside a large airplane hangar, is the big kahuna: the site that makes everyone gasp... especially when you realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Only about 2,000 of the estimated 6,000 statues in Pit #1 have actually been unearthed. You can walk around the entire pit, and we were lucky again... no crowds...
Each soldier is a little different...
Work in progress...
Closer...
Back of pit #1...
Us...
As you can imagine, there are 2,381,675 warriors statues for sale in the souvenir booths...
They choose black pottery flutes instead...
After the warriors we headed over to the beautiful grounds of Huaqing Hot Springs… a small lake, lots of pagodas and fabulous old stone walls and buildings that you can weave around for hours. This is where Emperor Xuanzong carried on with his concubines.. and where in 1936, Chiang Kai-shek was arrested and held. All of the grounds have been spruced up lately with sweet paths and super paint work. Also here is the Forest of Steles: a series of large stone tablets with famous Chinese poems engraved in many styles of calligraphy. The sun came out for a lovely afternoon stop…
Huaqing Hot Springs...
Trying to read a few characters... (she says Chinese is SO HARD and her teacher is SO MEAN... but I can tell how proud she is of all she is learning...)
Its art to me...
Awesome paint. Love the orange...
Peach...
Elle in one of the dozens of fancy pagodas...
Forest of Steles...
Each is different... I am trying to track down the exact poems carved on these tablets....
Cece's favorite...
She likes the bolder strokes...
Lots of fab old stone walls and steps for climbing...
Lovely, lively paint amidst all the grey stone and roof tiles...
My family is getting tired of my picture taking, but Elle hangs in there as my model...
Goodness...
Cece seizes the camera...
Another "photo by Cece" (shes good!)
Have to post at least one "kiss" picture. We've done this for years, in different places around the world... funny now to have our own kids snapping the picture...
For those of you wondering what split pants are. Chinese babies wear these until they are potty trained...
She promised it would be OK...
Eastern side of Xi'an...
Peaches, again...
Random wall with that chalky red/orange paint that rubs off on your clothes (how do I know this...)...
Bike against the wall...
To be continued…
adsventuresinchina 
Nancy, I showed your blog to my husband, who thought it was great too. He instantly noticed the excellent job you’re doing taking photos and commented that you have a keen eye for framing and capturing the perfect angles and shots – better than many pros. I agree. Maybe you have a book in the making from this trip! Have a great week! Joyce