ChAPtER 7. tERRA-COttA ARMY 秦兵马俑.
from Huaqing Hotspring, we took a cab towards the terra-cotta army. this cab driver's weird. kept repeating whatever he was saying. and brought us to some factory selling jade so that he could collect his petrol coupon/voucher or something. but he told us a lot lar. like 临潼三宝 = 石榴，柿子, and 蓝田玉; 石榴 and 柿子 can only be seen in october, so all that's left now is the 蓝田玉. never buy the 蓝田玉 from the street stalls. best is to buy them from the 加工厂s. and so he brought us there. lol. he also recommended the kind of jade we should buy: the pink 芙蓉玉 is best for ladies like us, and the dark green 墨玉 would be the best gift for mothers etc. oh and he said that there are 3 parts to the jade: 玉皮, 玉心, 玉根. if u want to buy jade u better buy those made from the 玉心 or the 玉根. the 玉皮 is the lousiest part of the jade~
anyway, back to the terra-cotta army. we took a "golf-cart" from the entrance (ticketing) to the entrance (exhibits). lol. first stop was the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (秦始皇帝陵), if i remembered correctly. haha. it was really dark in there. main exhibits are the chariots, the horses, and the riders (soldiers). it's said that these exhibits were half the size of the actual stuff but, it seemed a little too small to be "half the actual size" to us~
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| entry ticket! |
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| ticket to ride the "golf-cart". lol~ |
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| Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. |
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| 4 horses. carriage shaped like a turtle shell represents longevity. watch the following video to find out more. |
in the following video, director liling talks about the ornaments/jewellery found on the horses.
learn more about the 2 chariots with host weining in the following video.
we visited a total of 3 pits. pit 1 was the largest one. it's like what u see on tv and in books/magazines. liling has all the pictures so, as soon as i lay my hands on them i'll upload them onto this blog entry =] as for now, u may want to watch the following videos.
in this video, director liling will explain to us the reason for building the terra-cotta army here. or rather, the reason why the First Emperor of Qin chose this area for burial.
in this video, host weining will explain to us whatever we should see/know in pit 1.
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| pit 3. the smallest pit out of the 3. dun u think this place looks like an underground city or something? |
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| there's even a corridor... |
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| the compartment on the extreme right is said to be a sacred room used to 祭神 or something~ |
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| this is pit 2. the second largest pit out of the 3. work's still far from completion as u can see most of the stuff were still buried underground. |
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| here u can see the pillars and the roof structure of the "underground city" yet to be discovered. |
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| the archer. notice that his hair is more towards his left. reason for this (according to what we heard) was to allow better aiming for fellow archers situated behind him (in the army). |
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| 中级军吏佣. |
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| 高级军吏佣. |
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| and i'm forced to pose like him. |
no wonder the terra-cotta army's listed as the world's 8th wonder. based on what we saw at the terra-cotta museum i'm pretty sure Emperor Qin built an underground kingdom to be buried with him when he died. what we have now is probably one small part of his work. if that's really the case, man, we still have a lot to discover...
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| didn't know what to buy as a souvenir (either too expensive/too scary for me). so, i ended up buying a book instead. haha~ |
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ChAPtER 8. 走走看看.
now let's take a look around the city centre. actually, other than the muslim street, we also have the Drum Tower (鼓楼) and Bell Tower (钟楼) nearby our hotel!
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| the drum tower at night. |
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| the drum tower in the day. |
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| 文苑大酒店. eunice 姐姐's hotel. lol. |
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| flowers!! think there's some flower festival or something in xi'an, some time late april. too bad we couldn't make it. |
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oh! i also bought these stuff from xi'an. one from a shopping mall and one from a roadside magazine stall. (in case u wonder if xi'an has a disneyland. haha~)
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| it says "HK Disneyland"! and i think it really is from Disneyland cos the shop sells all kinds of imported stuff. haven't tried it yet. it's chocolate by the way. wahaha~ |
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| donald duck comic for steph! the pages are coloured but the words are all in chinese. lol~ |
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and...
thE ENd.
finally. i'm done with the blogging. hahaha~
(more photos on facebook!)
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