Hi everyone, so it’s been a while since I last posted. While I wasn’t posting, I went to a new city in China, which is called Xi’an. We went to Xi’an by train and it took around 11 hours. The train was really long, and because it was a red-eye train there were mini-rooms with four beds in them. I was in a room with two of my classmates and a random Chinese man, while my other classmates were scattered throughout the train.

Anyways, when we got to Xi’an we experienced a lot of different cool things. For instance, the day we arrived at Xi’an we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, which was an unreal experience. The hundreds of Terracotta Warriors and Horses were constructed approximately 2,200 years ago by the First Emperor Qin. He ordered the creation of the army of Terracotta Statues to be buried with him because he believed that objects like statues could come to life in the afterlife. So naturally, Emperor Qin thought that an after-death army was a necessity.

We also watched an incredible performance of the Song of Everlasting Regret, which is about a very powerful emperor Hsuan Tsung and his great love for Yang Kuei-fei. As Hsuan got older, he met this young woman, and they spent their time together in passionate love. Everything was good and all, except for the fact that the army got jealous that Yang’s family was getting too much power because of the emperor’s love for her. So the army decided to kill Yang and Hsuan gave up being emperor and let his son rule. The performance was outside and there were hundreds of people watching the performance. It is very hard to describe in words, but here are some words I would use to describe it: colorful, explosion, birds, glamorous, fireworks, grandiose music. Yeah, I didn’t exactly understand what was going on when I was watching the performance, but everything made sense to me when I read the plot online.

My favorite part of the Xi’an excursion trip was that I got to ride a two-person bike on Xi’an’s CITY WALL! It was insane. For one of the first times I was in China, I felt like I was breathing in fresh air. The city wall covered 8.5 miles in length and from each part of the city wall, I could see the city’s expanse with its temples and modernized buildings jutting out.

So week 5 just ended, and China keeps on surprising me with new and awesome things. The next three weeks are going to be bittersweet, and I’m looking forward to making the most of them.