Xi'an, The Terra Cotta Warriors

On Saturday, we woke up fairly early ('cause the kids were excited to begin the day) and went to check out the breakfast the hotel provided. Andy and I had fairly low expectations that we would find enough for the kids to eat. And we were proved right. So, true to the Wilcox norm of traveling in China, we ate breakfast at McD's. It is funny because the only time we eat there is for breakfast when we travel. We wanted the kids sufficiently fueled up for a busy morning of going to see the warriors. I must confess that I was almost giddy. I had wanted to see the warriors for many years and was excited to be on the way.

Looking out over the warriors. It was truly an impressive and awe-inspiring sight.

There are 3 pits they have found and begun to restore. This is Pit 1, the largest and one that has had the most restoration.

Pit 3 contains High ranking officials in what looks like a war council.

Pit 2 contains mostly calvary and some archers.

Kneeling archer

High ranking offical

The walkway leading back to the carpark provided for a fun bout of tag.

We read a couple books with the kids and researched about the army before coming to Xi'an. After all of this, our kids were fascinated with the archers and the generals. I think that we read somewhere that there were only 7 generals found. Which is an impressively small number considering that Pit 1 contains approximately 8000 warriors! As we left Xi'an on the train, we asked the kids what they thought of seeing the Terra Cotta soldiers. They all really enjoyed it, but Becca made a comment that prompted an interesting conversation. She said, "It wasn't exactly like I thought it would be." So we asked the kids and it turned that they had a lot of ideas of how it was going to look. Here are some of their thoughts:

• "I thought more of the warriors would be restored and finished." - Becca
• "I thought that it would be underground, like in a cave." - Josh (which makes sense, since he knew that it had been buried underground)
• "I thought we could get closer to them." - Josh
• "I didn't expect that there would be SO many of them." - Becca
• "I didn't realize they would be so big." - Becca (most of the figures are 6ft. -- 1.8M or slightly taller)

Look, this is what we look like as part of terra cotta army.....