Finally finishing China!

Alright, it’s about time that I finish up China, now that I’ve been in Thailand for 3 weeks. So I think I got through everything in Yangling, on to Xi’an for our last day in China. Since we only had one day we surely packed it as full as possible with pure goodness. We started the morning off by going to see the Terracotta Warriors. That really was so incredible. They have excavated three pits of warriors, chariots and much more and they haven’t even excavated the emperor’s tomb nor the area immediately surrounding it. The pits that they have excavated are a fair distance away from the actual tomb so who knows what else is still underground and especially at the tomb. WOW!!! No wonder some people call it the 8th wonder of the world. I don’t know the details but they told us that when the emperor actually becomes the emperor they apparently begin planning for their burial or death. This emperor that had the Terracotta Warriors constructed became emperor at 9 or 11 so he started planning his burial from then. Maybe being that young had something to do with his burial choice. So another thing I think is amazing about the Terracotta Warriors is how many thousands of laborers were employed for decades working on this project. The magnitude of it is just, wow!

Next we went on to one of my highlights from China. Really the whole trip was so amazing there are many highlights but this was one of the very top, spending the next few hours at the Starfish orphanage. These children were so beautiful! Most of them have cleft palates and they have been abandoned or dropped off at orphanages. The lady who runs the orphanage gets the children from the city or government orphanage and I don’t know any details about which children she receives versus who they keep but she has 46 children in two apartments that function as the orphanage. Most of the children in her care are adopted by American families and some European. Once again the spirit of those children and that place was just incredible. Those children were so precious! The name of the orphanage is really neat to because it’s relating to the story of the man and the starfish for any who recognize that story. The story is basically that a man is walking along the beach when the tide has gone down and is throwing starfish, which have been stranded on the beach, back into the ocean one by one. Another man observing him approaches him and says, ‘why are you wasting your time throwing these starfish back into the water, there are so many you’ll never even make a difference.’ And the man replies, “It made a difference to this one” and continues to throw the starfish back into the ocean. So that quote is written on the wall under the orphanages name, isn’t that such an incredible motto and perspective for that orphanage? It was truly incredible but I think that is plain to see from the pictures.

You know I think it is interesting to see what has happened in China since they have instituted their birth regulations or the one child policy; I think it has resulted in consequences they didn’t expect. Like the problem they are having now with too many females in the population compared with males. Because in China men are preferred over woman, some people would find ways of discarding female children to have a son which has created a population imbalance. And look at the case with these children, they are so beautiful and so precious but many are discarded or abandoned because they aren’t considered to be perfect. It’s so heart breaking to see but I’m so grateful for organizations such as this orphanage that are making a difference to all that they can!

Following the orphanage we dropped off our luggage at the Britton’s (the branch president’s home) where we stayed the night but there was much more to do. We went to the Xi’an city wall, since we weren’t able to make it to the Great Wall, this had to suffice. It was built by the same emperor, same dynasty and so on so it was pretty close, right? The wall used to enclose the city but now there are 8 million people in Xi’an and they surely don’t fit within the city walls anymore! It was really fun though, we rented tandems and Braden, Bill, Yi and I biked around the wall. Yi was a friend from the Northwest University, he is in one of Braden’s classes and he was our translator and buddy for the weekend. We also learned from this bike ride that Bill cannot handle not being in control and was definitely not prepared for the backseat of a tandem. I found this out first hand when I almost died after we switched positions. He moved to the back and I came to the front and then I almost died. He starting freaking out and he kept trying to steer and be in control of the bike, which for all of you who have ridden tandem before you know that you just pedal when you’re in the back. Well he kept jerking on the handle bars and I thought we were going to die and Bill started hyperventilating. Anyhow it was hilarious after we stopped and he got off of the bike and attempted to breathe again, oh good times. Needless to say, he and Braden have some work to do if they are going to be a team and win the great race! ;)

We went to the Muslim market after that which was really cool. It was a Chinese market in the Muslim sector and the place to go for cheap shopping. So we ate delicious foods and bought our China souvenirs there. Then came the water show, yeah, so cool! The Big Goose Pagoda, which we had gone to earlier, has a water show every night and we were there for it. It was a huge, incredible water show. The inspiration for the Bellagio we’ve heard but it was much bigger. And of course with all of that water and goodness we couldn’t not play in it. So in we went dancing and frolicking in our clothes. Yi, that great man, held all of our stuff because they have problems with pick pockets there. Understandable, thousands of people gathering every night to watch the light and water show. Once again we drew a crowd, everyone thought we were so crazy and a few people came up to us afterward and asked if they could have a picture taken with us. Yep, sure, have your picture with the crazy Americans!

We ended up searching out the hotel that the USU business students were staying in. They were on their Asian tour and just happened to come into Xi’an that day. President Britton was there host and coordinator in Xi’an. It was so great staying with the Britton’s, they were an incredible family. So we flew out the next day with Poi and Amanda. (The wife and daughter of a USU professor that was working at the University in China but his wife is Thai, so they were headed back to Thailand while he finished up some work in China.) Thus ends the China adventures for now but definitely not for good, I have to go back to China at some point in my life!