Day 5. Terracotta Warriors

My main goal in Xi'an was for Claire to visit the Terracotta Warriors. Unfortunately, while the artifacts were majestic, the experience was a total disappointment. 

The museum was more than one hour drive from the city.  Our friend Bei drove us there. It was also her first time visiting the museum. Our friend Jane had made the reservation for us. We showed our passports at the gate and went in. Once we got in, we entered this crowded chaos. It was full of people and noise. We were first warmed by a group of guides offering guide service. Jane had called a few minutes earlier and told us that they had already booked a guide, so we kept declining the guides. It took a few minutes but we finally met with Jane and started the tour.  

Our guide first took us to Pit No. 1. The site was a huge stadium-sized room, with visitors limited to the outer rim of the pit. There were so many people that it was jam packed on a super hot day. We had an ear piece to hear our guide, however, it was so crowded that we lost her soon. Fortunately, we could still hear her, so she gave directions and we found her again at a corner.

Claire did not want to continue the tour. So we left the tour with Bei. On our way to the parking lot, we had to walk more than one mile under the hot blazing sun to pass all kinds of shops. This design of the museum was awful, just trying to squeeze more money out of visitors. 

This place was too crowded and too poorly managed to enjoy. In contrast, Mogao Caves did so much better in crowd control. Bei joked that Qin Shi Huang was such a good emperor that he was still creating jobs to this day. Too bad that the current residents were not doing a good job of using this resource for the best.  

My plan was to watch the show "a song of long lasting sorrow 长恨歌" at night before heading back to Xi'an. Jane had booked the show tickets for us. After lunch, Claire was tired so I booked an hourly hotel within walking distance to the show on ctrip.com. While we were resting, Bei went to an outlet mall shopping. Early in the evening, Claire had a fever. Bei came and drove us back to the hotel. Claire's fever was under control after taking Tylenol. Jane and her family went to see the show and said that it was good. The tickets were not refundable for us, but I was still happy that we got back to the hotel early and Claire's fever did not progress.