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| Terra cotta Army at Lintong |
More than 8000 terracotta warriors, 500 horses, and a great
number of chariots stand silently
guarding the region of the tomb of Chin
Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China at
Lintong near Xian. Their presence is
testimony to his power and magnitude in the year 210 B.C. The purpose of this terra cotta army was to
protect the Emperor in his afterlife.
In this place the word
awesome is most fitting.
We saw in the visitor’s center an elderly man, one of the
peasants who discovered this archeological wonder while digging a well in
1973. The Chinese government continues
the amazing restoration of this site which was known to
exist through legend but lost in it’s
location.
Nearby were sophisticated bronze sculptures of a fanciful
carriage and a team of horses.
XIAN
Xian’s old city wall from the Tang Dynasty, 618 – 907
BCE is a rare and complete city
fortification. The rampart is decorated
for the Chinese New Year Spring Festival. Looking down from the wall on the
inside is the ancient city of Xian. On
the outside are parks and people busy with their lives.
The air quality in Xian was appalling – they all called it
‘fog’ but our sore red eyes and sore throats made us think “smog” not “fog.”
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| City Wall decorated for New Year |
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| Ramp to the old city |
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| An elderly man's exercise in the park spinning a top using a whip. |
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| Street vendor below in the old city. |
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| Barbers in white coats cutting hair on the side of the bridge in the "new city" |
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| Is that "fog" or is that "smog"? |
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| Traffic, traffic, .... and traffic ..... everywhere, always. |
We visited the Tang Theater and enjoyed a spectacular display of traditional Chinese dance.
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| Central City Bell Tower with Spring Festival street decorations ... and a charming Police wagon. |
My dear friend Lee Pope came aboard in Shanghai --- while I was off leading a full-day Field
Lab at the Shanghai Museum with my Collage Class. So much fun to share 3 weeks of adventure and fun from Shanghai to Xian to Hong Kong with Lee. We look forward to Vietnam and Singapore together.
Our Semester at Sea group visited an orphanage for children of incarcerated parents.
The “orphans” and the SAS students played together and performed for each other
…. And we all danced “Gangman Style” together.
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| "Call Me Maybe" performed by 7 SAS'ers |
Muslim’s make up about 1% of Xian’s 8 million population. We
visited the Muslim Mosque just at the hour of the call to prayer and later explored
the Muslim Bazaar with the food, fabric, and trinket vendors - a great
sensation.
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| This stall is NOT for the vegetarians - nor would this meat-eater even consider eating this street food. |
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| This jolly vendor steams small pudding cakes. |
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| Outside the grocery stores people are lined up to purchase meats for the holidays. |
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Hong Kong
We rejoined the MV Explorer in Hong Kong for a couple
chilly, damp and busy days.
The tram ride to Victoria Peak took us up into the thick
clouds with zero visibility. It was much
colder than we anticipated so we ‘just had to’ buy Chinese silk jackets and
pashmina scarves to be warm enough. We
enjoyed parading our new jackets back on the ship at Happy Hour with the
Faculty and Staff as the ship left Hong Kong, headed next for Vietnam.
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| MV Explorer tied up by Ocean Terrace Mall in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island is across the water. | |
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| Shopping with stiff bargaining at The Ladies Market. |
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| This piece of gold jewelry is approx. 7" wide and 5" from rump to rump. Anybody interested? |
The steep hill climb of the Victoria Peak Tram.
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| Nightly light show in Hong Kong Harbor. |
