RANDOM QUOTES, RANDOM THOUGHTS



Wednesday, February 4, 2009

DAY FIVE - XI'AN (29 DEC 2008)

Today followed a tour to the Terracottas. The bus leaves just outside the main road adjacent to the hotel at about 9am.
It was a fully guided tour. The first stop was 骊山(Li Hill). Took a cable car up and from there went down the hill on foot. From the top you could get a panaromic view of the whole area. The places of interest were all quite close by including the Terracottas.




This was a stone slab at a musuem at the foot of the hill. Kinda like the phrase formed around the word "口"(mouth) - "知足唯唔" - meaning "Knowing contentment is the enlightenment".



This is the holy relic 舍利子 collected from the remains of the ashes of Buddha. Not sure it was from which part of the body though.


Posing with the semi-nude statue of 杨贵妃。Not sure how close the statue was to her in real person, the statue made her look partially like a caucasian.


This was 杨贵妃's private bath/pool


This one was used by the Emperor.


There were many pools, there was even one reserved for the imperial chefs too!



These are the reservoirs for the hot springs. The water to the various pools were from these reservoirs.


This is the fountain where visitors pay RMB5 to get a feel of the hot spring water. I splashed the water all over my head and face, it was a wonderful feeling! Too bad there was no time to soak in the baths, would be good for the body and skin like the one I had previously in Tibet.

This was the place where Chiang Kai-shek used to stay and it was this place where he managed to escape from the Xi'an incident and went over to Formosa (now Taiwan). They even marked out the bullet holes in the walls! --







This was taken at the car park of the shopping stop. Not sure what game they were playing but looked interesting and all of them were having a ball of a time. They were all staffs of the shopping place.

This the mockup showcase of the underground tomb of Qinshihuang, too bad no photos were allowed inside. It was much more interesting than the Terracottas, not too sure how close it was to the original:


OK this was one of the entrance to the crown jewel (personally, I do not agree with that!) of Xi'an:


The photo of where the Terracottas were found. The underground tomb was confirmed to be beneath the hill but due to costs and probably very high risks of damage, there were no plans so far to excavate and uncover it.


"A miracle of the world, the pride of a nation and its people." - this is how they refer to the Terracottas.


The discoverer of the Terracottas, however he was not the actual farmers that found the first bits of the remnants and did not know what a big discovery it turned out to be. Wonder if those farmers were properly honoured as well. They should be accorded as such.









See how life-sized they were?



Just look at the sole and marvel at the attention paid to the intricate details in the course of this massively outrageous constructions!

There was no "WOW" for me visiting the Terracottas, unlike say Jiuzhaigou where it was simply breathtaking! For me I think the historical significance outweigh the Terracottas themselves in terms of the allure and appeal. Probably also the advanced technology available at that time, other than that I could not pin down why anyone would want to see this place more than once.

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For the night, went to catch the 8pm water fountain show at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (大雁塔) open square. Billed as the largest water fountain show in Asia, it did live up to its billing. A must see!

Some amazing night shots of the Pagoda from across the square!

2008 into 2009 in Xi'an, China "I WAS HERE" shot

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