Trip Report!! ABD Enchanted China 6/4-15/2017 Update 8/11/18! Day 10 - Shanghai à la Carte

Sorry to hear sitting with the Pandas had to end, but I'm glad they're ultimately doing what's in the Pandas' best interest. It was a crazy amount of money anyway. I really enjoyed the day in Chengdu including the opera. That was one of those activities I had no interest in before going on the ABD and it turned out to be great.
Yes, it's probably better all around that they don't do the photos any more! Best for the pandas, and best for our pocketbooks! The opera was one of those cultural things I really enjoyed experiencing!

Got it! Thank you so much. That's a keeper!
You're welcome! :)

Whoo hoo!! That's it. How could I have forgotten? He was wonderful--as were all the local guides.
I've had a lot of great local guides on the ABD's I've done, but the local guides on the China ABD were consistently excellent, and some of the best I've had!

Sayhello
 
Day 8 – The long trek… Terra-ific Xi’an

Today was a day I was both dreading and totally looking forward to. I really wasn’t totally on board with taking this ABD until they added the terra cotta warriors to the itinerary. Once they added that, (plus having read pxlbarrel & Cousin Orville’s trip reports) I was convinced I would do this trip someday. It's long been a dream of mine to see the terra cotta warriors!!

But it’s a LONG day. (*TOTALLY* worth it, but LONG). Our luggage had to be out by 11:30pm the night before, and we had to be up and out *very* early in the morning. I forget exactly what time it was, but it was *really* early. The hotel packed us boxed breakfasts to have on the plane to Xi’an. Things for me were a bit awkward, because I had my carry-on, my personal item, the boxed breakfast, and the ABD duffel bag with my memory foam pillow in it, since I hadn’t been able to pack the pillow in my checked bag as I normally did, since I needed it to sleep on. It was a lot of stuff to schlep.

Once again, I had some issues going through security. They pulled all sorts of ridiculous things out of my personal item again. My glasses case. My makeup bag. I can’t even remember what all, because they made no sense whatsoever. And each time they pulled something new out of my bag, they then took it back, and ran it through the machine, over and over again. It seemed like I was there forever.

The last item kind of did me in. I’d brought along some medical tape and a small pair of scissors to get someone to help me put some sort of bandaging on my arm before getting on the plane. It’s awkward & very difficult to bandage your own right arm! I’ve had no problems carrying these scissors before. They’re very short (well under the allowed 3 inches) and blunt ended. In Hong Kong, and Beijing, they’d just taken them out and measured them, then let them through. Well, these guys decided they didn’t like them at all, and took them. I didn’t know how I was going to bandage my arm now. I finally got cleared to go through after about the sixth or seventh round, and when I got out of security, and walked past Ralph, I just started to cry. He was, of course, concerned, but I said “I’m just tired. I’m really, really tired.” Then I told him about my scissors being confiscated. In the grand scheme of things, it really wasn’t that big a deal, but at 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning, it just seemed ridiculous. I caught up with the rest of the group, then went to find a bathroom. I *really* needed to pee. I finally found the bathroom, and the *one* western toilet was out of order. I didn’t know how far it was to any more bathrooms, so I ended up having to use the squat toilet. I was tired, I had long pants on, my legs just ached and I just really lost it. I figured things had to go up after this. I want to reiterate here, I was *really* tired. In retrospect, nothing that happened was that bad, but at the moment it happened, I just didn’t have a single ounce of resiliency left. It all improved vastly as we got to Xi’an, I got lots of tea (blessed caffeine!) and the day’s activities actually began. And as rough as the start of this day was, I would not have missed it for anything!! (And KarenStevan gave me a tiny pair of travel scissors she had, so I was able to get my arm bandaged. So it was all good in the end! And Ralph and Joe also offered me a tiny pair of travel scissors, too!)

When we arrived in Xi’an, we were transported to the area where the terra cotta warriors are. But first, we stopped in a Tea House. We were sat around a few tables, and had a tea demonstration at each table. We sampled several different types of teas, and watched as the demonstrators used traditional methods to brew the tea. I really enjoyed this. The teas were all delicious.

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They also entertained us with figurines that changed color when the boiling water was poured over them. I’m not sure if the original purpose was to show the water was still hot enough or what, but they were cool, and several of us purchased color-changing figurines in their zodiac character. There was also the infamous “pee-pee boy”, who yes, peed when you poured water in him.

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Here in Xi’an, we had our very fun, exuberant local guide, David. He was quite the character, and very knowledgeable. He's the smiling guy in the red shirt.

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While we were going through the tea demonstrations, one confusing thing occurred. Our lunches were passed out to us. It wasn’t really clear if we were meant to eat them then (still pretty early) or carry them with us through the terra cotta soldiers, to eat at some later specified time, or what. We were told we’d have a meal later, after we’d seen the soldiers. The lunch consisted of a pre-packaged sandwich we’d chosen earlier, a fruit cup, and muffins. A lot of folks ate the fruit cup, and maybe the muffin while we sat there. We were given grocery-type plastic bags to put them in. (Honestly, I ate the fruit cup and the sandwich, but the muffin ended up getting thrown away). It wasn’t a problem or anything, just odd.

We finally got ourselves together, and headed out to the part that was the highlight of the day – the terra cotta warriors. David led us over to the entrance area where we would catch trams up to the dig site. I got to hold the Paddle of Power to show folks where to congregate while David procured our tickets.

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David just had the best smile!

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We then hopped on the trams, and off we went!

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Finally, it was time for what we’d all been waiting for – the terra cotta warriors! We walked into the building that contained the main excavation pit, and I was totally amazed at how huge it was. I just don’t think photos prepare you for the sheer scope and size of what you see. And this is only a small portion of the number of soldiers that were buried at the site. Way more are yet to be unearthed!

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They quickly maneuvered us so that they were able to get family shots in front of the massive pit – it was quite a feat!

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David gave us an excellent history of the era and the emperor and the finding and excavation and repair of the soldiers as we walked the perimeter of the pit, and it was all just amazing and awe-inspiring. The sheer number and age of these soldiers is mind-boggling.

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The building covering the main excavation pit (Pit 1) looked HUMONGOUS from the entrance. And as you walked along the side from front to back, you realized it was even more huge than it seemed from the end. Rows upon rows upon rows of these amazing sculptures, then rows upon rows of areas yet to be excavated, then rows upon rows of figures in various states of repair. And this was only one pit. There were others, too! I’ve read that there are estimated to be 6000 warriors just in Pit 1, of which only 2000 have been excavated so far! One reason for that is that they realized that the figures had still had paint on them when they were unearthed, but it very quickly faded away. So they have halted excavation until they figure out how to preserve the paint. You *can* still see traces of colors on some of the figures.

This video doesn’t even vaguely convey the vastness of this place!


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Each warrior is unique, with different hair, faces, uniforms, etc. Amazing considering how many of them there are!

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These guys must have been Guards of some sort. The outer rim of what we could see was lined with these guys facing the wall for all eternity!

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The condition of the pits and the figures as they are unearthed.

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These pits, although unearthed, have not been dug into yet.

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Here you can see a lot of the warriors in various stages of re-construction. Apparently a lot of them were relatively intact.

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You can faintly see some traces of the painted colors here.

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The group exiting the main building covering Pit 1.

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We were then given some free time to visit the other areas of the museum site. One of those areas was Pit 2, which also has tons of warriors that have been uncovered, but not excavated yet.

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The very cool windows surrounding the buildings.

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The building covering Pit 2 also had an area with 5 figures (in glass cases) that you could get up close to, and really see the detail of these amazing statues.

There was a horse soldier and his horse

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A high-ranking officer

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A middle-ranking officer

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A standing archer

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And a kneeling archer

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It was really great being able to see them up close and from all sides, and really take in the great detail with which they had been made. They were all very cool, but I think the kneeling archer and the high-ranking officer were my favorites.

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As I finished up walking around Pit 2, I met up with KarenStevan and her son, and we headed over to the exhibition building to see the bronze horses and chariots. There were also bronze accessories, such as arrows and harnesses. It was very cool. I didn’t know about the bronze figures before this!

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After that, we headed over to the building that housed the gift shop and a short film about the Warriors, and the discovery of the site. The film runs in a continuous loop. It’s actually pretty interesting. After seeing the entire film, I joined the others out in the gift shop. I was hoping to get a jade statue of a warrior, but they only had figures that were way too large. I ended up buying a much smaller brass version.

They had large-scale reproductions of the warriors and the horses that you could purchase for a small fortune!

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After that, Ralph treated us to ice cream in the little cafeteria they had in the gift shop. It was nice to sit and relax for a bit, and the ice cream was good!

Eventually, we headed back out of the building, and with Daniel in the lead, walked back down to the tea shop where we’d started the day. I had one of my favorite moments on this walk, as we were walking away from the amazing experience we’d just had, CG’s son ambled up to me, and started a conversation about the cool things we’d just seen. Just take my word for it that this was something special, and was a really nice topper to the day!

Once folks hit the restrooms at the tea shop, we headed back to our motorcoach, and off to the Xi’an airport for our flight to Guilin.

I’ve read in multiple reports that the meal this day has been a real struggle for everyone, including ABD. Finding a clean place with decent food that didn’t take hours to feed everyone was apparently a challenge in Xi’an. I think ABD has found a really good option. We had an early breakfast, the bagged “lunch” or whatever you want to call it that we were given in the tea shop, and then, around 3:30pm-ish, we were taken to a lovely buffet restaurant in the Xi’an airport. It was a large, very nice restaurant with a great selection of food. I don’t know if they opened it just for us, or if it was so empty because it was the middle of the afternoon, but it worked wonderfully. Folks could sit pretty much anywhere they wanted, either at their own tables, or a bunch at a larger table. We could select anything we wanted, and the Guides made sure we got drinks. It was pretty much the same typical dishes we’d seen so far, and nothing super fancy, but it was good food and I don’t think anyone left hungry. It was a nice way to spend our time waiting, and a good meal.

Eventually, we headed off to our plane, and flew to our next stop, Guilin. (You can see the Mickey that I bought to put on my gel seat cushion in this photo!)

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Once we arrived in Guilin, we met our next local guide, Jenny. We then had a bit of a walk to our motorcoach, and rather a long drive out to our hotel, the Shangri-La Guilin. On the drive out, Jenny started giving us some history of the area, and it was really fascinating stuff. I *tried* to stay awake, because I really wanted to hear what she had to say, but I did nod off from time to time. As we got close to the hotel, you could vaguely see some of the “gumdrop” mountains in the dark. It was quite the tease for what was to come!

When we arrived at the hotel, we were met by greeters in exquisite local costumes, and they presented us with these delicate cloth-covered “balls” that were beautifully embroidered. They placed them around our necks, Hawaiian Lei-style. According to Google, they’re called “Xiu Qiu” and were hand made by young girls who either gave them to their intended love, or threw them into a group of eligible boys, and the one who caught it was to be her love. I was afraid mine would be squished during the remainder of our travels, but it arrived home in perfect condition!

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After that, I headed to my room to unpack and then relax & go to bed. As you can see, the Shangri La was a perfectly nice hotel, and I'm sure the nicest in Giulin, and the room on another trip would be great, but we all kind of admitted that after the hotels we’d stayed in so far, it was just a bit of a let-down. Spoiled we were!

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After I’d unpacked and settled in, it was off to bed. It has been a LONG day, and I was really looking forward to the next day, and our cruise on the Li River amongst the Gumdrop Mountains!

Up next: Day 9 – Lijiang River Riders
 
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Eventually, we headed back out of the building, and with Daniel in the lead, walked back down to the tea shop where we’d started the day. I had one of my favorite moments on this walk, as we were walking away from the amazing experience we’d just had, CG’s son ambled up to me, and started a conversation about the cool things we’d just seen. Just take my word for it that this was something special, and was a really nice topper to the day!

Up next: Day 9 – Lijiang River Riders

I love re-reading this trip!!! Thanks so much for bringing back the awesome memories. That was a very long day, and I agree about the weird timing of the boxed lunch. I think I ate my muffin and the fruit and tossed the sandwich. And you know you have a lifelong member of the SayHello fan club in my son :)
 
I love re-reading this trip!!! Thanks so much for bringing back the awesome memories. That was a very long day, and I agree about the weird timing of the boxed lunch. I think I ate my muffin and the fruit and tossed the sandwich. And you know you have a lifelong member of the SayHello fan club in my son :)
:love: So glad you enjoyed! It's a real joy for me to bring back memories for you guys (and me!) and share our story with everyone else! Give my love to your DS! :) He and your whole family are definitely a big part of this trip for me!

Sayhello
 
Thank you for bringing back such fond memories of our amazing China trip just a couple weeks after yours!

Xi’an was such a special place, but because of the crazy pace of the day, I think that I didn’t fully appreciate the magnificence of it until we arrived home. Now, when we reminisce about our trip, my 9-year-old daughter always recounts the “Amazing Race” day through Xi’an as one of her favorite and she remembers it in minute detail from the tea shop to the oppressive heat and everything in between!

I was also so glad to hear that you had Jenny as your local guide. Our trip to Guillin was somewhat marred because of extensive flooding the days before we arrived. However, Jenny (along with Kun in Chengdu) really enriched our trip and brought the experience to another level. The personal stories she shared added tremendously to the experience of visiting China. ABD really does an amazing job of finding quality local guides.
 
I am loving your trip report. We are considering ABD China this summer and I am happy to hear that the heat didn’t ruin the trip for you. I enjoyed reading your Danube trip report before we went in July 2017.
 
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Yay! Another installment. Totally forgot about that conversation with DS--so cute! So many great local guides on this trip. I love remembering them all.
 
Thank you for bringing back such fond memories of our amazing China trip just a couple weeks after yours!

Xi’an was such a special place, but because of the crazy pace of the day, I think that I didn’t fully appreciate the magnificence of it until we arrived home. Now, when we reminisce about our trip, my 9-year-old daughter always recounts the “Amazing Race” day through Xi’an as one of her favorite and she remembers it in minute detail from the tea shop to the oppressive heat and everything in between!

I was also so glad to hear that you had Jenny as your local guide. Our trip to Guillin was somewhat marred because of extensive flooding the days before we arrived. However, Jenny (along with Kun in Chengdu) really enriched our trip and brought the experience to another level. The personal stories she shared added tremendously to the experience of visiting China. ABD really does an amazing job of finding quality local guides.
I totally agree! Jenny's personal stories of growing up in post-Chairman Mao China really changed my whole vision of today's China, and was simply fascinating! I think she's the best local guide I've had on an ABD *EVER*, and I've had some amazing local guides!

Lovely photos from China! I’m looking forward to hearing how your Guilin day went.
Thanks! I'm hoping to have the Guilin day up soon!!

I am loving your trip report. We are considering ABD China this summer and I am happy to gear that the heat didn’t ruin the trip for you. I enjoyed reading your Danube trip report before we went in July 2017.
Thanks, so glad you're enjoying. I was *not* a fan of the heat, but it definitely did not ruin the trip. It's that fabulous of a trip! I *highly* recommend ABD's China trip! Truly amazing!

Yay! Another installment. Totally forgot about that conversation with DS--so cute! So many great local guides on this trip. I love remembering them all.
:lovestruc:lovestruc:lovestruc
The guides on this trip were uniformly spectacular! I love remembering them, too. As I said above, I still think Jenny was *the* best local guide I've had on an ABD! Hopefully that day will be up soon!

Sayhello
 
I totally agree! Jenny's personal stories of growing up in post-Chairman Mao China really changed my whole vision of today's China, and was simply fascinating! I think she's the best local guide I've had on an ABD *EVER*, and I've had some amazing local guides!

Thanks! I'm hoping to have the Guilin day up soon!!

Thanks, so glad you're enjoying. I was *not* a fan of the heat, but it definitely did not ruin the trip. It's that fabulous of a trip! I *highly* recommend ABD's China trip! Truly amazing!

:lovestruc:lovestruc:lovestruc
The guides on this trip were uniformly spectacular! I love remembering them, too. As I said above, I still think Jenny was *the* best local guide I've had on an ABD! Hopefully that day will be up soon!

Sayhello

Good news!! Our ABD China guide, Christian, just posted that Jenny will be an ABD China guide this year! This is so well deserved. She will be great!!
 
Good news!! Our ABD China guide, Christian, just posted that Jenny will be an ABD China guide this year! This is so well deserved. She will be great!!
Just saw this on Christian's Facebook! I was so excited... her stories were the most touching and enlightening and I'm so excited for her. She will be amazing!
 
Good news!! Our ABD China guide, Christian, just posted that Jenny will be an ABD China guide this year! This is so well deserved. She will be great!!
Oh that's fabulous!! Thanks for letting me know!! :thumbsup2 I saw photos of her at WDW with Adventure Guide Dusty. She must have been out for training! SO well deserved!!!

Just saw this on Christian's Facebook! I was so excited... her stories were the most touching and enlightening and I'm so excited for her. She will be amazing!
Exactly!! ABD made an excellent choice!

Sayhello
 
Oh that's fabulous!! Thanks for letting me know!! :thumbsup2 I saw photos of her at WDW with Adventure Guide Dusty. She must have been out for training! SO well deserved!!!

Exactly!! ABD made an excellent choice!

Sayhello
That is awesome awesome news!!! We loved her, and her stories were fantastic. So happy for her and for future ABD travelers.
 
:D I wonder if she'll still do the local guide piece for Guilin like Joe did for Beijing? Talk about the best of both worlds!

Sayhello
That would be my guess! She is such a great add to the team. DD18 was just talking about how much she loved Jenny and recalling some of the stories she told about travel and prejudice (remember her parents with Japan?). Talk about resonating with a powerful message!
 

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