Long days - big rewards

Saying goodbye to the Century Diamond in Chongqing Harbor

Good morning from Xian, China!   I apologize for not posting  yesterday, but it was one l o n g g g g g g day of travel.

We received wake-up calls on the ship at 6 a.m. and were to have our luggage outside our staterooms by 6:30 a.m.  Headed to breakfast, and departed the ship at 8:30 a.m.  Would you believe that during the time we went to breakfast and popped back to our rooms, they had already been cleaned and prepared for the next guests?  Uffda.  Sure doesn’t make you feel very welcome!  :-)

Group in Chongqing

Anyway, it is what it is, so we headed out for a day-long tour of the largest city in the world, Chonqing, China.  34 million people here.  THIRTY FOUR MILLION PEOPLE here. Chongqing is the largest municipality in southwest China. It is a modern port city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers. With an area of 31, 800 square miles (82,400 square kilometers), it shares borders with provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Shaanxi.

Chongqing Rail Station.  Yup, lots of people live here!

As China’s fourth municipality after Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, Chongqing has maintained rapid economic development - the building going on here is incredible.  Bridges are especially interesting to see - feats of engineering to be sure!  Known as the 'Mountain City', it has a wavy terrain and encompasses a wealth of water reserves, mineral resources, dense forests, and abundant flora and fauna. The city attracts visitors from home and abroad for its natural wonders and cultural heritage. As a common starting port for the Yangtze River cruise, tourists can go for a downstream tour to the magnificent Three Gorges.  What they don’t always tell you is the Chongqing is referred to as “the furnace of China.”  It gets VERY VERY Hot here in the summer.  Makes Sioux Falls look like San Diego.  Las Vegas can’t even hold a candle to this place.

This gang can make travel fun!

Sadly, there simply isn’t a lot to do in Chongqing, so we visited three shopping areas and a park. Interesting to be sure, but really just time-killers.  The only train that we could book us all on did not leave until 6:04 p.m. so we had time to kill.  Once we boarded the train, it was a five hour ride (Bullet Style) to Xian.  We rolled into our (very comfortable) beds at 12:30 am.

Today was an extremely busy day which followed an extremely busy day yesterday.  So busy in fact, that we gave everyone some time to sleep in this morning and delayed our hotel departure until 10:00 a.m.  What a relief!   That said, off we went to one of the “wonders of the world” - the Terra Cotta Warriors.

Pit Number 1- the original find.

Workers digging a well outside the city of Xi'an, China, in 1974 struck upon a life-size clay soldier poised for battle.The diggers notified Chinese authorities, who dispatched government archaeologists to the site.They found not one, but thousands of clay soldiers, each with unique facial expressions and positioned according to rank. And though largely gray today, patches of paint hint at once brightly colored clothes. Further excavations have revealed swords, arrow tips, and other weapons, many in pristine condition. The soldiers are in trenchlike, underground corridors. In some of the  corridors, clay horses are aligned four abreast; behind them are wooden chariots. The terra-cotta army, as it is known, is part of an elaborate mausoleum created to accompany the first emperor of China into the afterlife, according to archaeologists.

Ying Zheng took the throne in 246 B.C. at the age of 13. By 221 B.C. he had unified a collection of warring kingdoms and took the name of Qin Shi Huang Di—the First Emperor of Qin. During his rule, Qin standardized coins, weights, and measures; interlinked the states with canals and roads; and is credited for building the first version of the Great Wall.

According to writings of court historian Siam Qian during the following Han dynasty, Qin ordered the mausoleum's construction shortly after taking the throne. More than 700,000 laborers worked on the project, which was halted in 209 B.C. amid uprisings a year after Qin's death. To date, four pits have been partially excavated. Three are filled with the terra-cotta soldiers, horse-drawn chariots, and weapons. The fourth pit is empty, a testament to the original unfinished construction. Archaeologists estimate the pits may contain as many as 8,000 figures, but the total may never be known.
We toured the largest pit as well as #2 and #3 in addition to the museum nearby.  Earlier in the day, we stopped by a sort of “Terra Cotta Warrior Support Center” (aka - shopping experience) and students actually enjoyed packing up some “warrior” gifts for home.

Our late afternoon/early evening stop was at the North Square in Xian which is bounded by the Wild Goose Pagoda and, in celebration of the upcoming Lunar New Year, literally millions of lights in the trees.  It’s GORGEOUS. With an area of 168,000 sq m (200,926 sq yd), the North Square holds many records: in Asia, it is the biggest Tang-culture plaza, with the biggest musical fountain and the largest-scale sculptures. In the world, it has the most benches, the longest light-belt, and the largest-scale acoustic complex. It consists of the musical waterscape fountain, cultural plaza, gardens, cultural corridor and tourism facilities.  And yes, we got to watch the “largest fountain show in China!"

On a personal note as I write this post....you just haven't lived until you've run through 25 TV programs, all in Chinese, then settle to enjoy an hour of Badminton championships.  Golly, do these folks know how to play Badminton!  :-)

Bell Tower, Xian.