Travel China Planner

Terracotta warriors in Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum in Shaanxi province attracted more than one million foreign visitors last year.

In 2008, 176,000 Americans visited the world famous historical site, accounting for 14% of the total foreign visitors.

Since China and the U.S. established diplomatic ties 30 years ago, former U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have been for visits. former U.S. presidents Richard Nixon has also visited the museum.

Soundbite: Han Xiao’an, head of news department of foreign affairs office of Shaanxi provincial government “Nobody organized, but everyone was there to welcome Nixon to extend Chinese people’s warm welcome. As a world-renowned politician, he contributed great contributions to the ties between the two countries.”

The terracotta warriors and horses have also been shipped to the U.S. for exhibitions several times, seen as a move to enhance Sino-US relations.

Soundbite: Wu Yongqi, curator of Terra-cotta warriors and horses museum “This means that once the two nations have established friendly relationship,they will soon become very close and this will help pushing the development of the world, especially world peace.”

The terracotta warrior display is one of China’s most popular tourist attractions. It represents the army of Emperor Qin Shihuang in the afterlife.

terra cotta warriors

1, Is the underground palace in Lishan not? Folklore in the underground palace Lishan, experts used remote sensing and geophysical methods for detection, confirmation underground palace on the mound in the Qin Mausoleum under seal, from the ground level 35 meters deep.

2, intact tomb or not? Probe found that there is a circle around the tomb very thick wall, intact tomb closely related. This newly discovered burial form is called “Qin tomb style.”

3, the availability of mercury underground palace? Probe proved that the existence of mercury in utero, and the southeast, southwest, and the northeast, northwest weak.

4, there are several tunnels? Detection results show that only East and West has tunnel. From the thoughtful to the Han Dynasty, here are usually four tunnels for emperors’ tomb. This new discovery aroused great concern to experts.

Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum of the first comprehensive archaeological survey began in 1962, archaeologists to map out the cemetery layout first map, by the detection, the scope of cemetery 56.25 square kilometers, equivalent to nearly 78 the National Palace Museum, caused a sensation archaeological community.

Leaving Beijing we caught the train at night to Xi’an which was clean and punctual, but the beds were very hard and being next to the toilets. We were awoken by the morning chorus of throat clearing!

Xi’an is a busy modern city but it has the best preserved ancient city wall in the world, which we were able to ride bike around on a tandem, definitely a once in a lifetime experience and not to be repeated.

In the morning, people can be seen all over the city practicing Kung or FuTai Chi and even the office and shop workers come out onto the pavements for a quick warm up before starting their day.

Terracotta Warriors in Pit No.1

The Terracotta Warriors were found by a local farmer in 1974 in a field outside Xi’an. More than thousands of warriors, horses and chariots standing guard over China’s first Emporor for over 2,000 years. The old farmer is knocking on now but he’s still around and we saw him signing copies of his book in a gift shop.

China Street Artist in Xian

Another night, we took train to Shanghai. The city feels like it’s all about money, which it probably is, with it’s glitzy buildings which really put on a show at night. The Whore of Orient is what they used to call Shanghai but it still feels appropriate today.

Walking around Shanghai it can get quite irritating when you are asked for the hundredth time if you want to buy fake bags, watches or shoes but there’s no denying that it’s an exciting place to be and we were able to escape the madness by visiting the beautiful Yuyuan Gardens or stolling around the relaxed French Concession.

Shanghai Nightview

We only had two days here but we made the most of it, pushing the boat out a bit. We had brunch on the Bund (the grand old waterfront stretch of consulates, finance houses and private clubs) and later sipped cocktails in the 87th floor bar of Jinmao Tower whilst looking back to the Bund watching the lights come up over Shanghai.

On our last day we got up early and squeezed in visits to the Shanghai Museum with its wonderful collection of Ming furniture, art and vases, and then to the exciting Shanghai Urban Plannin Museum with its awesome scale model of future Shanghai. If it’s to be believed Shanghai should be a stunning place to return to in the future.

After the help we had received in Beijing, we now really were on our own. At Xi’an airport we managed to negotiate a place to stay and after being hassled by many taxi drivers charging very high prices, jumped on a shuttle bus into the centre of the city.

We thought may be the weather would warm up slightly but the temperature was -7 and there was thick snow on the ground! On our walk from the bus station to the hotel we were hassled by a man who spoke good English asking us what we were up to. He then offered us help getting to our hotel which we declined but he continued to follow and insisted he would call his friend to pick us up. Having just arrived in the city he were not for trusting him as something about him was a little dodgy.

Street food in Xi’an is clear we did NOT need help. We passed the bell-tower and finally arrived at what we thought was our hotel. However, it turned out the hotel had two premises in Xi’an and we had arrived at the wrong one! Thankfully we were given a lift over and checked in. For 6 quid a night the facilities were brilliant and the rooms are very spacious.

We went for a walk over to Xian station…madness! The queues were horrific as many people were travelling back to their families for New Year.Standing at the station an old tramp approached us begging for money. When we didn’t respond he poked Jonny with his stick. Looking back it was actually realllly funny! We managed to book ourselves onto a trip for to the Teracotta Warriors for tomorrow but after seeing the queues we decided we may have to re-assess our route through China to avoid the rush.