I awoke, surprising very well rested, on the train Friday morning. The few times I woke up in the middle of the night I fell right back to sleep with the train noises in the background. It's like when you fall asleep in a car and you tune into the sounds of the motor, and it becomes that restful noise that has you sleep soundly. Anyways... enough artsy writing... we arrived in Xi'an (pronounced: Shee-aun) around 8 AM.
We took a short walk from the train station to be welcomed by a lime-green bus!
They took us to the Shanxi Provincial Museum, located at the heart of Xi'an. This Museum was dedicated to depicting the story of finding the legendary Terracotta Warriors, found only a short drive outside of Xi'an. They had dozens of displays at the Museum, one displayed ancient pottery found near the warriors:
This display shows how they have yet to find any two of the several thousand warriors that have the same face.
Some more interesting figures found in the museum:
At the center of the museum was a large room with a high ceiling where you could sit and observe pieces of art. Very relaxing.
Alex Richichi deeply concentrated on a certain painting....
For lunch we stopped at a beautiful place where people could eat an watch a show. Unfortunately it was the middle of the day, so there was no show for us... but it was still a stunning place to eat.
After that we went to the concert hall to rehearse for our performance that night.
This was a very nice place that seated a little more then the theater in Beijing.
That's us!
That night we gave a standard performance.... but the experience.... was something unreal. Ask anyone from this trip and they will most certainly have a story from the "performance in Xi'an". While we sang the 2008 Olympic theme song, girls in the back of the room screamed as if it was an Elvis concert. After the performance everyone wanted to get a picture with us. Some girls were jumping up and down asking for a picture with me while at the same time saying "You cute!" I have never felt so good about myself in my life. I gave me email out to whoever asked for it... probably wasn't the best decision... but so far my email is still in tact!
That night was the best night I had on the trip. When I got back to the hotel my mouth hurt from smiling so much. That night, I realized how much the Chinese really do love Americans. Some went crazy for us. At points, it was hard to wrap my head around it all because here I am... honored to be experiencing their country.... but they were honored just for us to be there. We were celebrities.
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