If you can't google it, is it real? - 25 September 2008

When Jen asked me about the things I wanted to do in China, this was my list:

1. The Great Wall
2. The Olympic Venues
3. The Terra Cotta Warriors

What I didn't tell her is that the only reason I knew about the Terra Cotta Warriors is that they featured prominently in an epsiode of G.I. Joe I saw when I was a kid.  As I remember it, somehow Cobra Commander managed to bring the statues to life, and wreaked havoc on Joe using them.

The problem is that I can't find any evidence this actually happened.  There's a brief mention of it in the episode "Rendezvous in the City of the Dead" but I can't find screenshots.  I'm also not going to try and BitTorrent it here in China.  Things have been spotty enough trying to track down the episode.

We stayed at the Sofitel in Xi'an, which is a nice western-style hotel.  In the morning we walked to the bus terminal and took the 5(306) bus to see the Terra Cotta warriors.  They were (re)discovered by a farmer digging a well in 1974, having spent over 2000 years buried under the earth.  At one point, over 720,000 people were used to construct this burial tomb.  As usual, if you're looking for definitive information, check out wikipedia - specifically Terra Cotta Army.  Plus, if you're into neat technical things that aren't particularly useful, check out the panography of the site (gratuitously lifted from wikipedia as well).

For those of you content with my descriptions, the site is divided into three separate pits, only a portion of which are excavated.  The largest pit, Pit 1, is shown below:

Pit 2 is the next largest, and features higher-ranking officers along with exemplars of different statues under glass.  Someday the pictures with the flash going off (along with my reflection) will show up in the Phailed Photo Gallery.  In the meanwhile, here's a kneeling archer (along with some Chinese dude).

Last, and frankly probably least, is Pit 3 which houses the fewest statues.  Some of them must have panic'd because they've lost their heads.

There's also a separate museum where there are two bronze chariots (miniature chariots, I should point out) but it's so dark there that it's impossible to get a good picture, so we didn't even bother.

For the trip back we took the 914 bus, realizing later that it took nearly twice as long as the 5(306). That's the great thing, though, we've got plenty of time.