We went on an arranged tour from our hostel, and stopped off at a factory beforehand where they made replicas of terracotta soldiers as well as all kinds of other trinkets related to Chinese history. The best thing about this was being to get right up close to the soldiers themselves, something not possible, understandably, with the original terracotta army.
After following our sprightly guide Zhizhi through pit two and pit three, the tour culminated with pit one, the biggest and most impressive. As is probably the case with other sights, looking at my photographs I don't think they do the scene justice. It really is a mightily impressive sight, especially considering how long they've been buried there (since 210 BC).
The crowds are the one bum note of the exhibition, but they're generally unavoidable at an attraction that's as big a draw as this. If you're in China, go see it.
We foolishly agreed to include a Tang dynasty culture show as part of the package with the Terracotta tour. It was an enjoyable show, but very short, and not worth the time spent on the minibus getting to the venue and back. Then again, the Terracotta Army was always going to be a tough act to follow.
Nice reference! Almost as good as my Climbing Up The Walls one ;)
ReplyDeleteDo I get from the silence that you guys finally hit Australia? :-D
ReplyDeleteHa, no not at all! We've just hit the halfway mark of our six months in Asia. I got a little lazy with my blogging and then there was an incident where my netbook keyboard was damaged and stopped working. I wasn't able to get a replacement until we got to Hong Kong. So well behind on the blogging, but I'll get through it, don't worry!
ReplyDelete