Xi'an Day 2

Last night for dinner we went to see this show, it was amazing! There were musicians, dancers, singers and we saw the most famous pan-piper in all of China. He made his instrument sound just like a bird. The costumes were beautiful and the whole show was really breathtaking!

Today we went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. The warriors were created 2000 years ago and discovered in 1974. They were built to protect the emperor after death. He started the project when he was 14 years old and it was finished 38 years later, and took the work of 740,000 men to built the tomb. The terra cotta warriors are incredible because every soldier in the army was represented, so every face is defferent and looks identical to a warrior at the time. The tombs cover 67 square kilometers and have all sorts of chambers, from military planning rooms to slaves quarters etc. The craziest thing is there were lots of Indiana Jones-style traps and false entrances to the tombs. In order to protect the last tomb where the emperor really was kept, all the laborers who worked on that room and knew the truth were taken to another pit and buried alive, so as to keep the secret. The other amazing thing is that the emperor was buried in his chamber which was made completely waterproof, and was buried with thousands of lamps burning. The reason for this was most likely to strip the room of oxygen which would preserve all the gold and metals and paintings etc. buried with him-keep from oxidizing. The emperor was a madman, but maybe a crazy genious, too.

Then we went to get some famous Chinese foot massages. Ok, these are called "An Hour in Heaven," and I have to say that's not too far from the truth! It starts with a bath in chinese herbs, then a rub down of each foot that goes on for about 25 minutes on each. This feels amazing, but the funniest part was how we were in a room with six and they would all be slapping our legs or hitting them with wooden mallets which would sound like this band going on while our feet were starting to tingle... Then they went out of the room and returned with warm stones for our bellies. Then we turned over and they rubbed our backs. Finally we sat on stools and they rubbed our necks. The finale was to have us lay back onto their knees and they hels our armsout spread-eagle and jiggled their knees under our lower backs for a minute. It was the strangest thing ever, and the best was that my brother got this tiny girl and he was like "I'm not sure," and she's like "It's OK," and all I hear around me is "Relaaaaxxxxxx" which is just cracking me up, then, winded from the work my masseuse finally said "Finish!" at which point I was free to go. Tonight we are staying in the relax mode, packing up and getting ready for our flight out tomorrow morning followed by a cruise down the Yanghtze River. More details to come...