Wandering Aidan: The Underground Army

Greetings, readers! Today is the third post of Wandering Aidan's China Series. Enjoy!

Stop Three: Xi'an! It's pronounced "Shee-ahn".

We only had one day in Xi'an, so we used it wisely. And by that, I mean we crammed in as many activities as is humanly possible.

Our first trip was to the (interestingly named) Wild Goose Pagoda. Outside the pagoda, my mom and dad took a Tai Chi class. I respectfully declined the invitation to join- Tai Chi is more or less the art of striking awkward yoga poses in slow motion- and instead opted to provide the photos below.

At one point, the instructors set a music player on the ground, which played a traditional Chinese tune. They then struck awkward yoga poses in slow motion for quite a while afterwards.

Let's take a break from that for now. There were a few other interesting demonstrations going on, like this samurai sword class. The movements were similar to Tai Chi, but revolved more around the sword.

Let's see if our instructors are done yet.

No, still going.

This was another demonstration, albeit with only one person. She had a fan act, flipping the fan open and closed with surprising grace.

There were many of these acts coming and going around the square. As we learned over the course of our travels, parks like these are much more popular in China than in the U.S., and often have a greater range of activities and ages.

Let's check on our instructors.

Our next stop was the pagoda itself. There's not much interesting about it, but there were a few interesting zodiac-themed sculptures and books at a traditional building that had been turned into a visitor center.

This is the actual pagoda.

Here's us in front of our zodiac signs.

Horse...

...Rooster...

…And Monkey.

In case you want to know your Chinese zodiac sign, here's a chart.
(photo found online)

After the pagoda, we took a drive to see the terra cotta warriors! To let the suspense build, we first stopped at a place creating and selling replicas of terra cotta warriors, among other things.

We made our own warrior replicas on our stop. Actually, all we did was stuff clay into a mold, and even then, we didn't get to keep our creations (they needed to dry for about two weeks).

Here are the finished products. They look a bit lumpy in this photo, but they actually came out quite well.

For our last major activity, we then continued on to the terra cotta warriors! There are three pits of them. Pit one is the largest, followed by pit two, then the comparatively small pit three.

Fun Fact:

The purpose of the terra cotta warriors was to provide the emperor of China with an army for the afterlife. This is why the warriors are underground- they were buried with the emperor. In fact, the emperor was narrowly persuaded away from burying thousands of actual people.

Fun Fact:

The warriors were not found in mint condition. When the warriors were discovered, almost every single one was in pieces. This is because the rebelling people of China shattered the warriors as part of their (eventually successful) attempt to take over long, long ago. Because of this, each warrior had to be painstakingly put together like a jigsaw puzzle after discovery.