survivor NTU cum rants: xi'an day 2 part 1! =D

so onto xi'an day2!! ahaha.. yea finally huh.. haha.. so we all woke up at a v v early time(to me) of ard 7am..prepared abit, grabbed our jackets(cuz its autumn then) and headed out for breakfast.. hahaha.. wanted to go 回民街to find some local breakfast goodies.. but end up after walking halfway we think its abit too far la.. so we all u-turned back and settled for breakfast at a small shop near our place.. ordered 豆腐脑, 油条, 豆浆 for breakfast(forgot to take pics for breakfast! >.<)

anw.. cui yichen met us at ard 830.. then he drove us to another nearby hotel to pick up the tour guide for the day.. yup.. we hired a tour guide since cui yichen is nt tt confident of explaining the history of the 兵马俑 and 华清池, which we will be gg later in the day, and gg there without knowing the history behind it is like going trying to eat laksa without chopsticks/forks.. ok la..u get the idea right.. hahaha.. picked up MJ(no, nt micheal jackson or micheal jordan.. but he's ma jun) our tour guide.. then we head over to 兵马俑.. 兵马俑 is out of the city.. ard 1.5hrs drive.. so cui yichen drove us there.. while i recovered the lack of sleep from the night b4..

and after 1.5 hrs of driving and fighting for parking space.. finally we reached.. 兵马俑!!

entrance

兵马俑has 3 different areas.. or they call it 3 different pits holding thousands of terracotta warriors.. 1st pit is the biggest and most complete of all, 2nd pit is the smallest but still a v impt pit to be discovered and the 3rd pit terracotta warriors are still being dug out as of today..

quite a plain outside, tts pit 2 if im nt wrong, 3rd pit of the terracotta warriors

pit 1, the biggest and most complete of the 3 pits

yes the outsides are obviously quite plain.. so after MJ's brief explanation..we walked/sqeezed into pit 1... and presenting.. pit 1's terracotta warriors!

the terracotta warriors are arranged in the same military stance tt 秦始皇used during war of cuz during his time... well obviously it has some degree of success if nt he would not had unified china would he? hehe

the vanguards.. the 1st in line of the battlefield.. so its said tt b4 battle they would drink wine, get timeselves really high/drunk and charge into the battlefield ala rambo, ARMOURLESS..

the main forces, hordes and hordes of them.. and rmb.. this is jus pit 1..

soldiers with horsies

pic of chui-ded terracotta warrior.. alot of the terracotta warriors are partially destroyed due to the peasant uprising then when 秦始皇died ... they destroyed alot of the warriors.. many of the dug up warriors are patched up by modern artists and archeologists.. there are of cuz some tt are too chui... or they might be chariots.. chariots are made of wood..and cannot survive for 2000yrs without rotting away.. so they end up looking chui-ded

rows of armies..

pic of me!!

the terracotta warriors are said to be carved out based on 秦始皇's actual army.. so each of the terracotta warriors have their own faces..and nt like molded from a single warrior like face...

zoomed in pic of the warriors.. notice the different faces and style..

after walking/squeezing ard in the 1st pit.. we moved on to the 2nd pit.. the 2nd pit is the smallest of all discovered pits... but also one of the most impt.. warriors here are arranged differently.. they arent facing out to the enemies.. rather they are facing each other... and alot seems to have no weapons.. so archeologists predicted that pit 2 is the hq of the army..

plenty of headless terracotta warriors

every pit has a guy holding onto some horsies...

so from pit 2 we proceeded on to pit 3.. the newest pit to be discovered.. the warriors are mostly buried save a small section of archers.. however there are a few terracotta warriors brought up to the platform for tourists to view.. and some exhibits too...

pit 3..largely uncovered pit..

the kneeling archer.. the most no defects terracotta warrior found to date..

then its the middle ranking general!

high ranking general which is supposed to hold onto a sword.. the sword is displayed elsewhere

and who says the koreans invented taekwondo? the qin dynasty ppl did! jus tt no one knew! but the evidence is here..on this guy named the standing archer...

i highlighted the v tkd points...(he's doing chil jang)

chromium plating is a technology lost after the qin dynasty.. they have chronium plated swords for high ranking generals in 200BC.. and the technology is jus redisovered in the 1900s.. amazing!

different types of melee weapons used back then...