As I mentioned in my last post I went to Xi’an this weekend
to see the Terracotta Army. After an 11
hour train ride to Xi’an we hopped a bus for the hour long trip to the
excavation site of the warriors. Finding
the right bus was not the easiest task, we were warned ahead of time that there
are actually fake buses with the same number on them which will take you to a
million other sites you don’t want to visit.
Luckily, we did find the right one.
When we arrived at the site we realized that the ticket office is
actually nowhere near the main building.
This meant we had a nice long walk in the rain. Despite the setbacks though, seeing the
warriors was truly amazing. We visited
the adjacent museum and three of the excavation sites. All of the sites are now enclosed in
buildings, and the main bit is over 250 yards long and 68 yards across. I took as many photos as possible, but
unfortunately it is quite difficult to get good shots due to the crowds and the
lighting inside the buildings.
I picked the perfect
time to leave Beijing in some ways and the worst in others. While I was away, Beijing had extremely heavy
rainfall and the worst floods in six decades.
I avoided most of this by being out of town, but our train back into the
city was supposed to arrive on Sunday morning and instead arrived around
6pm. At a random point along the way,
the train pulled over and came to a stop for four to five hours. It was already going to be an eleven to twelve
hour train ride so it was not a lot of fun waiting an extra five hours. We were told the reason for the delays was the flooding in Beijing. With this in mind,
we thought the city would be a mess when we arrived, but everything looked more
or less as we had left it. I have read reports
of collapsed bridges and roofs related to the flood though so I was just glad
to hear everyone I knew was ok.
This week I’m finishing up the last of my assignments at the office and preparing for my departure next week. It’s been an amazing summer. In some ways the time has flown by, but at the same time I’m eager to get back and start preparing for the upcoming semester. I’m starting to have to take into consideration all the little things like how much Chinese currency I need in order to make it through the next week without having too much leftover. I’m also starting to wonder things like how weird it will be to eat with a fork and knife again. There are a lot of things I will miss about the Chinese culture including the food, but there are also many things I can’t wait to enjoy back home. I’m starting to plan a float trip in August with some of my fellow MBA classmates so I can soak in the beautiful scenery that Arkansas has to offer. While I definitely have not run out of things to do in Beijing, I have no big plans for this weekend. I will mostly be starting to get my things together and doing a little souvenir shopping. If the weather is nice I will also be taking a lot of pictures around town. According to my computer, I have taken just under 800 photos so far, but I’m fairly sure there are more on my camera which I haven’t uploaded. You can never have enough pictures.
