It’s been pretty smoggy and dusty so far, today was no real exception. Buildings would sometimes fade beyond the smog at a distance of only 2 or 3 hundred metres, and the heat (upwards of 30 degrees) has been fun to contend with after 6 or so months not venturing above 10 degrees.

We organised to go visit the terracotta warriors, which was one of the things I was most looking forward to because it’s been on my list of must-see things to tick off before I die for quite some time.

There’s a lot of really interesting stuff about this place that is just so fascinating. They were created around 2200 years ago, and at present there are known to be about 8000 warriors in total. The emperor’s tomb is in a huge pyramid-shaped hill a km or two away, and because of that they suspect there may even be more warriors yet to be discovered. Also super crazy is that each warrior has it’s own face, based upon each real-life person who created each statue. Crazier still is that every one of those 8000+ were killed because the emperor wanted to keep the terracotta army a secret (well that cover was blown 40-odd years ago).

Fragments of warriors. It takes about 4 months to repair each individual warrior.

The warriors were originally painted, but now that they’re being uncovered all the paint apparently fades within about half an hour of being exposed to air. This warrior still has a little of the original red paint showing on his lower back.

Also, here’s the friendly neighbourhood cat: