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We took a weekend visit to Xi'an which was an important city along the silk route a couple thousand years ago. A well off professor from the University of Xi'an kept us up in a really nice hotel in the city and we saw the major attractions in the city.

The WILD GOOSE PAGODA is a 5 story all brick building. The original was built in 700 AD but was knocked down and rebuild many times. Inside were many shrines and paintings of Buddha

Like most major cities, Xi'an had an ancient CITY WALL that the new city is built into. The wall is about 40 feet tall and has moats on some sides. It was built in 200 AD and rebuilt in the 1300s.

The HUAKING HOT SPRINGS were build in several stages at at one point an emperor added baths for his wife because she smelled. No lie, that's what the guides told us.

MT HUASHAN was a couple hours drive east of Xian and is about 9,000 feet high. We took a cable car to about 4,500 feet and climbed to the 4 different peaks. The climb from that point to the top took over 3 1/2 hours and was mostly stairs barely wide enough to fit 2 people carved into the mountain but in some places was cement. At the top was a restaurant and also a couple of temples. There were old men walking past you up the mountain carrying sticks over their shoulders balancing vegetables on one end and rice on the other. We also saw a guy carrying like 6 watermelons on his back. This was one of my favorite stops on the entire trip.

QINS TERRA COTTA WARRIORS was also amazing. Emperor Qin was able to conquer all six existing Chinese provinces at the time and to show off his wealth and power he had a clay army constructed. There were 8,000-10,000 warriors in total, all hand made and fully painted. There were generals, soliders, chariot riders, bowmen and even horses. They all stood prepared for battle with swords and weapons towards the east because their enemy always came from that direction. This was the biggest of the 3 huge buildings as they were still uncovered other pieces.

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