Saturday July 7

Saturday July 7
Xi'an

Okay so we got about 3 hours of sleep today, we are really living the easy life. Our flight out of Beijing was delayed due to fog so we got in super late to Xi'an Ms. Becker and I were not sitting together on the plane so I told her to give me a shout out if we go down in the form of "I heart you Ms. Bisconti!" and " I heart you too!". You get the idea.
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Now we are really beginning the Silk Road leg of our trip. Xi'an was the capital of China for over 3000 years and for 73 dynasties. They say if you really want to know the history of China this is the place to be. Thus, Xi'an is considered the beginning of the Silk Road. So I don't have to tell you how exciting that is for a couple of history teachers from New Jersey.

We started at the Terra Cotta soldiers. These were created under Qin Shi huang di. Yes, yes, did I hear all of our students say "oh yes, he is the one that started the centralized government in China." Ms. Becker and I are so proud! He was also crazy for immortality. And hey if you are going to be immortal why not take an entourage of 8000 plus Terra cotta warriors with you? It's good to be the king. Any way, you can see in the pictures below how each one has it's own unique features and no two are alike. They have differing ranks and roles just like any other military. One of the things that we both loved were the horses. The detail, size and sheer magnitude of the soldiers and horses are astounding. As you can see, Ms. Becker and I went to meet these brave young men and thank them for a for their outstanding service. Ms Becker even got to shake one of their hands!! We realized that these guys have been through a lot and were buried up to their eyeballs in work for Qin Shihuang di. We know lost their heads from so much stress (Ahhhh, who can resist a bit of grave humor!! Oops I did it again!)












Then my canon slr camera died and I was freaked. Ms Becker was so reassuring by telling me not to worry it was just the ghosts of the warriors refusing to have their picture taken (Ms. Becker commented that the notion of that has an Indiana Jones ring to it and well you know how I feel about him). But that it would get better when we left. Well . . . NOT. It's officially dead. Dead as in no more pictures with my beautiful canon 50d. Dead as in my little stinky 9 year old canon shot is working but this one is dead. Yes, I am calm now but I was not earlier. So Ms. Becker is going to share her camera with me because well I kind of sobbed you know that really horrible face all sketchy and your nose is running blubbering "my camera doesn't work." But remember out of the bad always comes some wonderfully unexpected moment of good. In an effort to fix my camera I went into an electronics store on the streets of Xi'an. Through the language barrier I explained what happened to my camera and he understood my utter devastation. For an hour he and several others tried everything and anything they could including calling other camera places until finally he determined the capture button was dead. I tried to give him a tip for his troubles but he refused and said "It was my pleasure". But I'm here to say it was my pleasure to meet John Liu and the many others who diligently worked on my camera. Their selfless act gave me a connection to the people of China. There was nothing he got out of the situation except the chance to help someone he'd never met. That brought me back to my senses and helped me get through, I am not saying that I am not truly upset by the fact that this extremely expensive camera does not work and I am on a trip of a lifetime (anyone that has been in my classroom knows how important my travel photos are to me) but that put it into perspective. But just like the people in the camera shop, many others showed their empathy and gave me unsolicited acts of kindness. People like Andrew, a tour mate, came with me to find the camera shop so I would not get lost (anyone that knows me, just took a breathe thinking about how going myself would have gone. I would still be wondering around). He did not have to do that. My husband helped calm me down from across thousands of miles with love and support. And of course, I must give a shout out to Ms. Becker who comforted me and said that we will share her awesome camera for the rest of the trip. I hear you Ms. Becker ( oh, by the way it is 4:30 in the morning and she is snoozing away. Oh and she giggles like Betty Rubble in her sleep. It is the cutest thing! You know i am seriously dead for sharing that one. You find out lots of interesting things about people when you room with them). So once again, just like after "the vomit situation", all is right with the world.

Ok back in time to an earlier portion of the day, back to the terra cotta warriors. At one point we entered into the museum on site. Ms Bisconti decided to stay outside and search for postcards. Neither one of us are huge fans of museums for philosophical reasons. I know, I know we are terrible historians. However, there were some really cool exhibits including the blowup version of ancient documents. Before paper (and I'm sure you all remember the exact date of its invention because we are such awesome teachers), documents were first written on bamboo that was then tied together. That's why the writing goes from top to bottom and not left to right like we are used to. Also in this museum was an exhibit of the stone armor and helmet a warrior would wear, yes STONE. Ok now I once fell on my back in front of the entire school at an assembly because my textbooks were too heavy for me! I could not imagine wearing a stone suit of armor.









So after the museum we made a bathroom break. One cultural experience we have not shared with you are the squat toilets. (There are many western style toilets too but sometimes they are not available.) I'm not completely unprepared for the squat toilets; I did have to use one in Turkey. If you've never used a squat toilet let me paint you a picture. There is a lovely porcelain hole in the ground to which you must squat over. If you are not familiar with this practice you will find quickly that your thigh muscles may be out of shape. And no offense to girls but sometimes they are disgusting and sometimes they miss, especially while using a squat toilet. I think you get what I'm saying here. Boys I'm sure your bathroom looks the same, but I have no first hand knowledge of that. And let's not forget that occasionally you will find that the toilet is not fully stocked with toilet paper, a serious necessity for the ladies. Ms. Bisconti and I have begun to hoard the toilet paper from our hotels on the off chance we might find ourselves in such a situation.

For dinner most of our group went to a famous restaurant for dumplings. I can't remember the name right now but I'll find it out. This was when Ms. Bisconti took a trip to the camera store and we all know how that went. She did meet up for dinner a little later thankfully because the food was out of this world. I have never witnessed such presentation in any other fancy restaurant I've eaten in. The first part was just appetizers but then the real fun began. Plate after plate of the most gorgeous dumplings I've ever seen were whisked out and quickly onto our plates and in our stomachs. Dumplings are filled with various meets and vegetables, but this restaurant made a new art form out of presenting the dumplings such as shaping the one filled with quail like a little duck or the dumpling with walnut inside it was darker and pinched together like an actual walnut. It went on and on until I found myself in a serious food comma. I regretfully don't have pictures of the dumplings; I stupidly left my camera in the hotel. Another teacher was snapping pictures so I'll have to get hers later.

***Please understand we only have access to Internet in lobby so makes it extra tricky to post. So there may be a day or two in between postings but we are still on.***

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Location:Xian