Today is the day of the Terracotta Warriors! First stop was a shop where they made replicas of the warriors as well as lacquer furniture.

From there we headed over to the museum. The collection the terracotta sculptures depict the armies of the first emperor of China and was buried with the him in 210–209 BCE. Their purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. Our guide said that he wanted to bury the army alive with him but the prime minister suggested the sculptures be made as they still would need the army to protect the empire.😛 When coming here I didn’t realize that the individual sculptures were life size. They were made in pieces. The legs first which is solid clay. Then the body was made and the arms, which are both hollow. The head is made separate and placed on the body. There is no directions to putting the pieces back together, so in all likelihood some of the heads have been placed on the incorrect bodies! It is estimated that there are more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits nearby. In addition, non-military personal have been found as well. There are currently 3 pits that can be toured. The first which is the largest is where the original discovery was made in March of 1974 by farmers digging a water well. Our guide told us the government paid the farmer whose land the army was found on about $35 a month for 5 years. After then the site became very popular so the farmer was hired to sign autographs. He retired in a few years ago supposedly a rich man. Another interesting fact about why the sculptures are in pieces even though they are in the ground is due to several earthquakes over the years as well as the fact that the chariots were made of wood which deteriorated causing pieces to collapse. Our guide also told us that the terracotta is painted, however, when exposed to the air, the color disintegrates. There is so much information about the warriors, if you are interested in details, here is the wiki site: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army I was not sure how interested I was going to be, but it was such an amazing experience!

Here are just a few of the pictures I took. Look at the detail!

Next we went to the Tang Bo Art museum to learn about Chinese art and have a calligraphy lesson. It is much harder than it looks!

The day ended at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda which is a Buddhist pagoda built in 652 during the Tang Dynasty. There is a legend as to how it got its name…

According to ancient stories of Buddhists, there were two branches, one of which you could eat meat. One day, they couldn’t find meat to buy. Upon seeing a group of big wild geese flying by, a monk said to himself: ‘Today we have no meat. I hope the merciful Bodhisattva will give us some.’ At that very moment, the leading wild goose broke its wings and fell to the ground. All the monks were startled and believed that Bodhisattva showed his spirit to order them to be more pious. They established a pagoda where the wild goose fell and stopped eating meat. Hence its name.

In front of the pagoda is a statue of hierarch Xuanzang, who went to India to collect Buddhist materials which were stored in the pagoda.