Tall, Dark and Terracotta...?

Just thought that I would do a separate terracotta army post as it was nothing short of let's see - AMAZING!

Ever since I checked out a copy of that National Geographic, I have wanted to see this site. I had built it up in my mind over the years so I thought that I would most likely be disappointed when I actually got to see it. WRONG. It was fabulous!

When you get to the site area, you are immediately accosted by vendors selling terracotta men in all shapes, qualities and sizes. They will follow you around with arms full of things to try to sell you. When you actually enter the site, there is a nice landscaped walk up to the hangars where all of the excavated sites are. The path was lined with lovely persimmon trees and more vendors hawking postcards and other highly portable items (easier to run after you with).

We went into Vault 1 first - the biggest vault. The mass of people in the front was unbelievable! I had to fight my way up to the front so I could get a glimpse of the money shot - all of the soldiers standing in rank, facing me, ready to get their orders. I actually did have to throw a few elbows to get up there - the little old ladies were the most vicious though! I'm not proud of it, but I did kinda "accidentally" trip a 70ish year old lady (not entirely on purpose - hey, she would have done the same to me) because she elbowed me really hard in the gut and hit me.

Once I was up at the front the only thing standing between me and the men was a metal rail that I was sandwiched up against and, very unfortunately, the railing was at bladder level. So what you say? Did I mention that there were hundreds of people trying to get into the building and many of them wanted to be standing right where I was. I was in a position where I couldn't move, there were so many people pushing on me that I couldn't back up or move to either side. So, the result - a massive amount of pressure on a very full bladder, pain, worry, a brief moment of relief (like I can hold it), then panic! I managed to get out (I honestly don't remember how, I just remember the focus) and eventually I was able to get some sweet relief. So, if you have seen my photos on my site many of them from Vault 1 are blurry - I fully blame the pushing and the bladder situation (definitely not my mad camera skills - hmmm...)!

Vault 2 and 3 were also very interesting, not as crowded though. It was really interesting to see the excavation going on in Vault 2. The museum was really crowded (note blurry pictures again) and it was difficult to enjoy the chariots. But the attention to detail is quite remarkable - the drivers have fingerprints.

After a little bit, we decided to leave the museum and go back to Vault 2 to be nerds. They have a photo room where you can get you picture taken as a soldier, with the soldier, etc. That is when this happened: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theunsinkablemb/51516139/in/set-1117303/. Yup, we are that stupid. We needed to meet the tour group back at a certain time, so we decided to take one more look at Vault 1 - and this time we were able to go down the other side of the vault to get a different view of the guys.

What a day - it was made even better because we were able to end it with pizza! What a great day!

Whoo-hoo! Birthday Guyuan Style!

Hello! Well, many of you know that I just celebrated my birthday and many of you have already seen my birthday can on my photo page. Turing 29 was pretty painless here, but also pretty uneventful as there really isn't too much to the city.

Matt and I went to the beloved Dico's for my birthday dinner (I have a feeling that many special occasions will be marked there - with french fries)! I had my usual - which the staff now knows very well and we had a good time. We also went to the mall (no dead bodies this time) where I picked up my birthday can of sour cream & onion Pringles and a bonus Dove chocolate bar. We also found a place at the mall that sells DVDs (all of the places around here seem to only sell VCDs), so I picked up a couple of movies too.

The school gave me a nice surprise - our waiban (foreign affairs person) said that she wanted to come over in the afternoon to check our heat to make sure that it was working properly. We said sure, come on over, but were thinking (geez, you need to check our heat? Why?) So, around one o'clock there was a knock on the door and a man came in with a huge cake and flowers from the school! How thoughtful!

I called our waiban to thank her for the gifts and then I was told that she went and cancelled our dinner plans that we had that evening with another teacher so they could take me out to dinner (kinda thoughtful in a kind of inconsiderate way, huh?). So, dinner was at a really good hot pot place. Hot pot - a pot with broth in it on a burner. You add meat, vegetables, noodles to the broth and nosh on the contents for hours (at least in this case).

The dinner was nice, but kinda strange. I didn't really know any of the teachers who were there. They were all from Matt's school. None of the teachers that I work with were invited. So, I only really knew Matt and our waiban (and Mr. Yan - the master negotiator who helped us out with the medical forms). The dinner seemed to just go on and on and on.... After about 1 hour they started to play drinking games, which, isn't really my thing as a non-drinker. This continued to be the main theme for the next 4.5 hours. Yes, four and one - half hours! So, after my long, 5.5 hour dinner we were finally allowed to leave. I was being held captive at my own dinner. I just couldn't leave as I was the guest of honor at a birthday party thrown for me by room full of strangers.

Never Trust a Monkey Tryin' to Sell you Food

Hello!

Sorry that it has been a little while since I last posted - I have been busy! Matt and I are back at school after a very eventful National Day holiday (October 1-7). Here's the story...

So, you all know that we are both teaching here in China and will be for the next couple of years. One of the things we need to obtain within 30 days of arrival in the country is a residence permit so we can stay here. So, we thought that everything was going well because our waiban would ask for some documents, passports, pictures, etc. every now and then and we would give them to her. We told her that we wanted to go to Xi'an over the National Day holiday and that was when the hassle started. Now, it really isn't anyone's fault, because the school has never had any foreign visitor before, but it was quite...an experience.

First, some of my classes were cancelled because the junior school was having exams and the senior classes were supposed to be cancelled because they were having a sports meet. So Matt and I thought, "Sweet! We have some bonus days off!" No dice. Not knowing about the ways things work about having or not having class, we thought that it was certain that we would not have classes so we stayed up really, really, really late. A couple of hours after we went to bed, we get a phone call, our waiban said that it was raining so the sports meet was cancelled for the day. Shit. Matt went out and looked, no rain, but the ground was a little moist.

Fortunately, my classes were still cancelled (I don't think that anything would cancel exams) so I just rolled over to get some shut eye. Matt took off for class. Soon after he left I get another call - our waiban - she tells me that I have to go to Yinchuan a little later that day to get some tests done (ALL of the very expensive tests that we had done in the US were not usable). So, later that afternoon, Matt, one of the English teachers at the senior school (to help us translate) and me caught a bus to Yinchuan (the provincial capital). Five hours later we rolled into town, all of us grumpy and tired.

The next day we went to the hospital to have all of the test re-done so we could get the health certification to get our residency permit. So, after the short physical exam, LONG x-ray (I think that Matt is still worried about that), the ultrasound (Matt not so worried about that because, "if it's safe enough for a baby, then it's safe enough for me!") and the icky bloodwork we were done? NO! We were told that it would take a week for us to get the results back and they could not issue a certificate. Thank goodness for our English teacher friend! He told us to wait and he said that he was going to see what he could do to speed up the process. About 10 minutes later, he came back and said that it would be done tomorrow and that "there is the law about doing things, but sometimes you need to rely on your relations." Or something like that. For a little extra dinero he was able to get the certificates processed quickly.

So Friday, the day of our non-refundable train tickets. Everyone is rushing around to get the certificate processed - at 6:00 PM or so, our waiban comes to the English office with all of our paperwork so we could take off that evening. WHEW! We were both exhausted before we even left for Xi'an.

The train was overnight, so we arrived in Xi'an at about 7 AM. After a little running around and waiting in the wrong lines, we got our return tickets to Guyuan. One of the English teachers that I work with (who was extremely helpful with this trip) gave me the phone number of her brother-in-law at the Foreign Language University (who just happened to be an English teacher too) and he helped us arrange our room once we arrived. Everyone was very helpful and we are very thankful.

Xi'an rocks! I really liked the city! The first day we went to the Dayan Ta (Big Goose Pagoda) and Shaanxi History Museum. We got soaked! My purple shoes got so wet, both my socks and feet were dyed a weird fuschia color. We bought an umbrella outside of the pagoda and the woman who sold it to us got in trouble with the police, but it looked like she put up quite a fight. That evening we had a very important task - to locate western food. We decided to stay around the university area rather than cabbing it downtown. We hunted and hunted and didn't find anything besides KFC (which we didn't need because China has a better version of the fried chicken eatery - Dico's). So we settled for a place that was westernish - with a big smiling monkey to boot! It was called "Best Food", another chicken place. Bleck! Even the cola was just not right. Let's just call the food "uninspired" - it was one of those meals that you know will come back to haunt you in a couple of hours (and haunt it did). Damn monkey and it's sub-par food! So, our first attempt was a bust. Pizza was the goal for the next day and we would not be disappointed.

The next day we saw a lot! We went to the Shaanxi Beilin Museum (cool carved stone steles), Great Mosque, the arts district, the Muslim district and explored the city. For dinner, Pizza Hut! We had to wait for about an hour before we could get a table. But I have never been treated so well by a Pizza Hut employee! When we were seated, I stuffed my face with the American special, baby! That's right a whole 9" of pepperoni and cheese heaven! I traded with Matt for a piece of his pizza and kinda dropped it. I almost cried. Sad, huh? We washed it all down with a pitcher (a large American sized pitcher) of 7UP - we were told that a pitcher would be too much for just two people, we proved them wrong. Ah, gluttony at its finest! I love it!

Our third day - Terracotta Army tour - whoo hoo! I will write a special post about that experience, but check out the pictures - www.flickr.com/photos/theunsinkablemb. We also got to go back to see Dayan Ta (a little drier this time) and the Huaqing Pool (most recently famous for the Xi'an incident). Pizza for dinner - we also got to see all of the kites flying at night in front of the Bell Tower - really cool with the lights from the tower.

Our last day we went out to see Famen Si - where the fingerbone of the Buddha is housed. It was an interesting day. The only tour that went out there was an all Chinese tour. So, we went to many tombs - Mao Ling earthen tombs, Qian Ling (Imperial Way), tomb of Prince Yi De and a really bad Chinese Folk Village. Honestly, the place sucked. It was like a really bad "It's a Small World ride" that lasts about 20 minutes and you want to poke your eyes out at the end. When we got back to the city, Pizza Hut again with a little McDonald's appetizer and a trip to the grocery store to buy as much butter and cheese we could carry (okay, slight exaggeration, but we bought a lot).

In the morning we took the train home and was able to look out at all of the beautiful scenery that we missed on the way down. Excellent trip, tiring, but totally worth it!