Terracotta Army, Xi'an the 4th.

Monday 25.06.2018

There are things that you have to see in order to understand them. Everyone knows, for example, that submarines are tight, but only when you have squeezed from a torpedo room to the stern, seen the 60cm beds and the toilet, do you get a sense of what it must be like to dive in such a tin can in the water.

I had a similar experience with the Terracotta Army.

You can read many facts, there are about 2000 warriors on display, but that is only 1/3 of the entire army produced, the warriors are life-size and none of them look the same, the poor craftsmen who made the statues had to go to the grave with the secret after the death of the emperor. But only when you stand in Hall 1 and see the army of warriors or take a close look at one of the figures, and see the delicate details down to the sole of the shoe, does the reading become reality.

We consciously decided to take the trip on Monday and not on the weekend to avoid potential crowds of visitors. A wise decision. We were guided and explained everything by an English-speaking guide. Following the advice in the travel guide, we looked at the three pits in reverse order, because pit 3 is the smallest and pit 1 is the largest. By the way, all the statues have been rebuilt. Earthquakes and fires actually destroyed the complex. The end of our tour was a meeting with one of the farmers who discovered the site while digging a well in 1974. He still comes to the museum whenever he feels like it and signs books or poses for pictures.