XIAN

Xian and the Terra Cotta Warriers lived up to every expectation that I have had about these wonders of mankind.  Before I provide some thoughts about my time here, I should explain why this blog is being completed from my home office instead of while on the road.  I kept trying to access my blog site while travelling; but no luck.  I finally asked our guide and learned that in China you cannot use this blog site and cannot access Facebook.  As I am sure you know about the problems between China and these companies concerning internet access; I will not go into that here, except to say that it is why I am blogging later instead of while travelling.

Upon arrival to Xian we visited the Han Mausoleum which is a relatively new discovery and also shows the burial pits of an Emperor but these pits are filled with small clay statues instead of the awesome replics of actual warriers shown in the buriel pits of the terra cotta warriers.  It makes one wonder if the emperors became less important as the years went by.  At this point however the important thing is to share the terra cotta warriers--there are over 8000!

After visiting the warriers we had a chance to explore Xian.  I want to share a picture and ask you to guess what the picture represents before I explain it.

The picture is of a mosque designed like a buddhist temple.  In fact there is a very active Moslem community here and it was fascinating to see the contrasts with the typical China communities we had the opportunity to visit.