Xi'an

I am checking my email using the hostel computer in Xi'an. I am already traveling inside my traveling abroad. I wouldn't have it any other way! That is how I want to make my dreams come true. By traveling the world. I cant wait. It really is so beautiful in other countries. And I learn things everyday I could never learn in a classroom...its a compltely different kind of education, and i love it. speaking of my dreams.....in the airport while we waited for our flight to Xi'an I met the executive chef of a very fancy chinese restaurant here in Xi'an. There was a man at starbucks who could translate for us and to make a very very long story short, he invited us all to eat at his restaurant tomorrow night (saturday night) for free!!!! He said we could order whatever we want free of charge! how cool is that?! I would LOVE to be able to just watch him for a day in the kitchen....you could learn so much! The mans name is Wenlu Xu. he is the executive chef at the Prince Restaurant, which is apparently in a hotel? He also said that one of his friends just opened one up in Florida somewhere and that it is the best mandarin and cantonese food we will ever eat. I will let you know how that goes! He was so kind, (which is not characteristic of an executive chef) and incredibly adamant about us coming to his restaurant. I cant wait!

I saw the Terracotta Warriors today! I can not even tell you how cool it was! They are calling it the 8th wonder of the world, and boy i agree! I also got to see the tomb of QinShihuang who was the emporer who had the terracotta warriors built to guard his tomb. The warriors and the tomb are about a mile and a half apart. They say that the tomb still hasnt been excavated because they have found intense amounts of mercury in the walls that they have penetrated, and in the tellings about the tomb they talk about "rivers and seas of mercury" which turned out to be true, and aparently there are a few other crazy warnings about who ever or whatever is guarding the tomb itself since there is supposed to be beautiful treasures buried with the emporer also. I would LOVE to do more research about it..Just think, i was standing on his tomb today! So crazy! Anyway, the warriors were incredible. The detail is emaculate, and truely awe inspiring. The Emperor had all the workers who made the warriors sealed in the kiln after they were complete so the secret of the warriors died with the town, and then with himself when he died. They were discovered in 1974 by a farmer (I met him today!!!!) They found more warriors in 1984 and found more recently, but are waiting until they have more technology to fully excavate them. (When the first warriors were found, they were colorful, but once they made contact with the air some type of oxidation happened and the color faded completely after 3 days. So they are waiting to find some kind of preservation technique to save the beautiful 2,000 year old pigment on the warriors.)
We also went to a silk factory where I learned how silk is made. Silk worms are nasty looking! But it is INCREDIBLE at how they find the ends of the strings of their cocoons. From one silk worms cocoon they can get 1,800 meters of silk thread. Pretty crazy!
We are staying in a hostel for 6 US dollars per night and it is such a cool experience! I will have to tell you more a bout that later. Anyway, they booked our tour for us and arranged everything, all we had to do was show up so that was helpful. They have posters about all the different tours, and things you can do here and the tour today was from 9:30am to 6pm and we were exhausted! So we rested for about an hour then went to the Tang Dynasty Music and Dancing show. It cost 198Yuan or about 26 US. It was so worth it! It was a beautiful asian musical basically with incredible lights, and costumes, headdresses, backgrounds...it was an all around awesome experience! It is pouring rain all night so when the show was over we had our umbrellas and were running through the streets trying to catch a taxi. The drivers in china are very defensive...everyone just looks out for themselves and it seems like that is the only law. They completely disreguard any signs, or pedestrians or lights...people just go when they want. Anyway, we finally caught a taxi and there were no seats in this little van! It was just covered with cardboard so we had to sit on the floor and hope he took us to the right place. (we keep a list of everywhere we are staying in chinese to show people where we need to go. It is an adventure sometimes but we always make it back safe!) We couldnt stop laughing, it was such an awesome experience. One you could definitely only get in China!
Here in china, people stop me all the time to take pictures with me. It is really really funny. They push the other girls in my group away and suddenly i am surrounded with chinese people and flashes everywhere...i dont get it! I must look really odd to them or something? I dont know about that one...
I better go, my time is about up!