Our eighteen hour train journey in the normal chair class brought us to Xian in a semi-delusional state. We stepped out of the train and into a climate that we had barely felt for our ten months abroad... the cold! Then we walked out of the station and saw the massive and imposing city walls that were built in the Ming Dynasty in 1370 and instantly knew that we had come to the right place, the former imperial capital of China.

This city was well-known in ancient times as the "beginning and the end" of the silk road that linked Europe with Asia for several centuries, and it was the place where travelers and explorers would come in order to experience "China" and take back pieces of it to show and tell tales of the Far East. It lost its prestige as the capitol of China back in the tenth century, when the Tang Dynasty fell and the capitol was eventually moved to Beijing causing many of its relics and history to fall into disrepair or be forgotten. However, today the city is embracing its roots, and it still maintains many of the influences from years ago.

Those influences can be seen in the Muslim quarter, where trading Muslims from the West would come and either settle down or recuperate before setting back out towards the Middle East. Over the years, intermarriage has caused a diverse mix of Muslims and Chinese, but the quarter is still primarily Muslim and is a fantastic place to go for food. We spent nearly an entire day there just eating. We ate kabobs, falafels, different spiced rice gelatin dishes, candied fruits, and some teas. It was a wonderful experience as well as renting bikes for an afternoon and riding along the top of the old city walls that are forty feet high, over 55 feet thick at the base, and encompass nearly a 10 mile perimeter. However, the highlight was definitely the trip out to see the Army of Terracotta Warriors.

The warriors were built by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, who was considered by historians to fanatical because he supposedly buried 460 scholars alive who disagreed with his plans and did enslave thousands for his massive building projects, but through all of that he built the beginnings of the Great Wall, established a legal system, uniform currency and script, conquered 40 other kingdoms by the time he was 40, and built thousands of miles of roads and canals to facilitate trade. He was pretty much the "Alexander the Great" of China.

The soldiers themselves were built around 200 BC as an army to protect the tomb of the emperor and were left buried and forgotten for 2,000 years until some peasants drilling for a well discovered one of them in 1974. Now, thousands of soldiers have been unearthed but many more are still underneath the sands of the three separate chambers where they lie. The largest chamber contains 6,000 excavated infantry men, ranked officials, archers, and horses with chariots and each one of the soldiers has unique facial characteristics. Staring at the massive army is breathtaking knowing the amount of labor that went into building this accomplishment, and I never cease to be amazed at how people of ancient times were able to accomplish such massive feats.

Leaving Xian, we are now embarking on another overnight train journey to the burgeoning "new" capital of China and the home of this year's summer Olympic Games, Beijing. It is supposed to be a city of power and history, and I doubt that either one of those expectations will be let down since this is the seat of the government as well as the home to such places as the Forbidden City and closest access to the Great Wall. Till next time, Cheers. (I heard that there is an exhibition of terracotta soldiers from China on display in Atlanta, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested.)