AndreaLiew.com

So this city is made up of flat land…mostly. Once in a while you’ll see ONE giant hill in the middle of nowhere. These are mausoleums for dead emperors and for items which they saw fit to be buried with. death hills, I like to call them.

Anyway, this part of the China tour has consisted mainly of visiting historical sites and museums to learn about the many dynasties. One famous thing you might have heard of are the Terracotta Warriors. There are over 8000 infantry, archery, and calvary men (along with their horses) that were made out of terracotta (a type of ceramic) as burial objects for the first emperor of China. These were built life-sized.  ya, that’s right, the first emperor had these made so that they could be buried with him in his mausoleum. The reason? Chinese people believe that after death, we go to another world- and whatever you bury with you in our world will travel with you to the ‘other’ world.  If you’ve ever heard of Chinese people burning paper houses, “hell money”, paper cars, etc., it’s the same concept. Whatever is burned with you at your cremation is carried with you to the other side. I think the burning paper concept is much more efficient than the burying concept.

Anyway I think I’m becoming allergic to museums. I love knowing about history and all that…but I hate looking at the same/or similar things over and over again. Thanks to our tour guide for helping out in the boredom department though – he allows me to skip out on reading plaques and plaques of information.  Seriously though, a museum a day for 3 days straight is not my thing.

On another note, I’m dumpling’d out. I went to a Dumpling Banquet and ate too many. no more dumplings please.

I won’t be updating this for a couple days due to a mini-cruise I’m taking…where I doubt they will have the internet.

Cheers, all.

P.S. Try warm rice wine!