We left the hotel at 5:30am for the airport. Security was again reasonable even though our guides keep warning us about how difficult it usually is. Our flight was at 7:00am, this time on China Eastern.
We met our local guide at the airport in Xi’an. He led us to our bus that took us to a Tea House where we had lunch. The lunch was marginal, thank goodness it came with a fruit cup and a large chocolate chip muffin, but the tea demonstration was neat.
They had several teas displayed for us to see and smell. Then the hostess brewed and poured several types for us to try and talked about how each one helps with different ailments. I just read. “The Tea Girl From Hummingbird Lane,” so I had to try some Pu’er tea. The tea hostess smiled when I ordered it and told me it was the best one and that she drank it every day.
After lunch we went to see the Terra-cotta warriors. Ten years ago there was an exhibit at a museum in Houston and I got to see the few statues that were on tour. I got to get really close and the museum was air conditioned. Not so today!
These statues were carved and placed here in preparation for the emperors afterlife much like the Egyptian pyramids. A farmer found the first ones in the 70’s and more continue to be discovered. The fields are now covered in a warehouse like structure and rows and rows of the soldiers and horses are visible.
Unlike the Great Wall where the pictures don’t do it justice, this stop was a little underwhelming. It actually looks better in zoomed in pictures than in real life and this didn’t stir my soul like the wall did. I enjoyed the miniature exhibit in Houston more than this, but they continue to excavate. Right now only the outer ring is on display, the next ring is made up of bronze warriors and the inner ring is jade warriors. Those pits aren’t open to the public yet though. Maybe in a couple of decades they will open those pits too and it will be more phenomenal.
From there we headed back to the airport to go to our 4th city, yes that’s two flights and 3 cities in one day.Guilin. We had dinner at the Xi’an airport hotel. It was buffet with lots of options. The French fries were really good! We brought clothes to change into for the group dinners on this trip but except for our welcome dinner in Hong Kong we haven’t been able to change for dinner.
They keep warning us about how bad security is going to be, but so far it’s been fine. Our flight was a little delayed getting out of Xi’an, but that’s apparently the norm. It was on Air China again. We got to the hotel, a Shanghai-la, at around 9:30. By 10:30 our bags still weren’t delivered so Coral and I went down to the lobby to look for them. There was a cart with about 8 bags on it, so we just took ours and went back to our room. The guides warned us that this hotel wasn’t as nice as we had been staying in, but was the nicest hotel in the city. I stayed at the Shangri-la in Bangkok before and it was the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in, but this one was just an average hotel that had seen better days. Still, we had an amazing view of the mountains the next morning when we opened the curtains.
Total Fitbit steps for the day: 14,151
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