Chung Kuo part 2: Xi'an
Random notes Xi'an:
1Heh, and realized later from our hotel window that they'd outlined those crenellations and watchtowers and the whole wall with fairy lights which go on at night and look very cool!
2 I really should probably say more about all the old traditional touristy stuff like the terracotta army, the Forbidden City, Great Wall, etc., but there must be So Much previously written about them, much better than I could express, and only a google away...
- Rather more impressed with hotel here. Outside and lobby just as posh as the Beijing International, plus had comfy armchairs/couches/coffee tables in the lobby to wait/hang out at, and our room was rather posher. But then discovered the shower pressure was crap AND the shower floor ever so slightly tilted away from the drain so it didn't drain properly;
- Our guide "Michelle" had a semi-permanent look or concern, which was somewhat disconcerting because I suspected my father was semi-permanently giving her things to be concerned about;
- The watchtower and city wall was cool (right around the old/inner part of Xi'an), all old and with fake entrances and arrow slits and crenellations1 and things;
- The terracotta warriors of course2;
- They're currently completing a massive complex around the excavation site. All these new shiny buildings which I think are going to be filled with shops. I doubt the archaeologists need any more infrastructure (there's quite a lot there already) - I wonder how much of the tourism money goes to the science? They do have a couple of hundred archaeologists (the team is working in partnership with the Germans apparently) still excavating and piecing things back together;
- They're reserving some parts of the site and not excavating until the science improves and they can prevent oxidation of the paints which originally coloured the warriors (I'd think we'd be able to do that now, expensive, but you should see the amount of construction going on around this site!);
- Dad commented to Our Guide that the farmer who originally discovered the site in 1974 (*checks date on google* wow, who woulda thought I'd manage to retain ANY dates!) and brought it to the attention of the universities/government "must be very rich by now". Cripes he's naive. He was very surprised to learn that the guy got pushed off his land (and so did the surrounding farmers who then all ostracised the discoverer) and ended up as a beggar for more than a decade until Queen Liz II visited the warriors (late 80's I think? *tries to google date*) and asked to meet him. The government then searched him out and put him on a pension of some kind (I doubt it's very lucrative) and he now makes extra money signing books at the main excavation site shop (he's like 90+ I think).
- Many other Dad anecdotes...
- Must write about Theatre Restaurants :-/
1Heh, and realized later from our hotel window that they'd outlined those crenellations and watchtowers and the whole wall with fairy lights which go on at night and look very cool!
2 I really should probably say more about all the old traditional touristy stuff like the terracotta army, the Forbidden City, Great Wall, etc., but there must be So Much previously written about them, much better than I could express, and only a google away...