Today we had to wake up a little bit earlier than usual to see the Terra Cotta Army. Dr. Lee wanted to beat the rush, so we were on the bus by 7:45. I did not realize how recent a discovery the Terra Cotta Army was. It was only discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. Up until that point, historians knew that the emperor buried at Terra Cotta had a tomb somewhere, but no one knew where. Apparently, there are still portions of the army missing, too.

The actual army was not what I expected. The statues were indoors, for starters. Many of them were broken because before the location of the tomb was forgotten, a revolutionary came and destroyed many of the statues. That was 2200 years ago. There are also multiple buildings that hold the army. Inside one of the buildings we visited, they were still digging up the remains. It is still weird to me that these landmarks are 10 times older than the country that I live in. There is just so much history here. Our tour guide, Rocky, kind of hit on this fact when he described to us a little bit about the laws in China and the thought processes behind them. For instance, he told us why the policemen are not allowed to carry weapons of any kind, with the exception of a small taser. This is because about 2200 years ago, the emperor whose tomb is protected by the Terra Cotta warriors, placed restrictions on civilians possessing weapons. These restrictions are still present in China today.

We had lunch at the cafeteria above the gift shop before we got back on the bus and drove back to Xian. Once we were inside the city, we were dropped off at a section of the wall that borders the inner part of Xian. At this point we rented bicycles and rode the eight-mile loop around the city. It was very cool because you had a 360-degree view of the city the entire time. What was not so great was that it was almost 95 degrees while we were biking, and the wall had no shade whatsoever. The sun was beating down on us the whole time. Towards the end it was a bit of a struggle to keep going, but luckily the last stretch was slightly downhill, so not much peddling was really needed. Tonight, Dr. Lee is taking us back to the Muslim Quarters where the giant market is located. There he will show us a place to eat dinner, and we will shop around for a while. Tomorrow, we have to get up around 6 to catch our train to Shanghai. Out of the two cities that I have seen so far, I definitely like Xian more than Beijing. Xian has much more character, and much less pollution, than Beijing. It also is just a livelier city. The Muslim quarters makes you feel like you are immersed in another culture, while Beijing feels like another city in the United States.