It'll be easy, we'll just take the bus..

After our flight was delayed, we ended up getting to Xian at around 11pm on Tuesday. Through more online research, we had found that for our hostel, we could take an airport shuttle to a nearby hotel and then walk, so we went to the transportation center and payed around $4 for a ticket to get us into the city. The bus was packed and as we got off in the city, hoards of taxi drivers tried to get us into their cars. It turns out that the hotel was right in the center of the city, by an attraction called the bell tower, and our hostel was right on the other side of the street, so we walked literally right through the street since all of the underpasses were closed and eventually found our hostel even though it was very hidden. It was past 1 am by the time we got into our rooms, so we went to sleep in our very uncomfortable beds.

The next morning, we found a bakery for breakfast and took off on an adventure to get ourselves to the terracotta warriors museum, the main attraction in the Xian area and the reason we had gone to the city in the first place. A website we had found and the lady at the front desk of our hostel told us to go to the train station and take bus 301 all the way to the warriors, so we got ourselves to the train station and saw that there were hundreds of buses all packed into the area, none of which said 301. We asked maybe 10 people and followed their signals all the way back into the city walls, and through random streets to a bus stop and finally found a 301 bus. When we got on, we showed the ticket lady a picture of the warriors and she signaled to us that the bus didn't go there, and told us in Chinese that we needed to get on bus 307. Thankfully a nice lady on the bus told us when to get off to catch a 307 bus, and sure enough we were able to get one. The ticket lady on that bus knew exactly what we wanted and gave us tickets to the last stop. After a $6 hour and a half ride out of the Xian city center, we finally arrived at the museum. To get in, you have to walk through a huge market area, all selling mini warriors and other souvenirs, and then you have to push your way through the hoard of English speaking tour guides who tell you that it will be "no fun" or "very confusing" without them. We took our chances and went in alone, a good decision as it was in no way confusing to get around. The museum is broken up into four buildings- one with artifacts and three with different pits that you can look into and see the warriors. It was really cool to be there after seeing so many pictures when researching China. There were tons of tourists around, but we managed to get some good pictures since we're so tall and can just hold our cameras above their heads.

Statue outside of the museum.

Outside of the museum

Armor recovered from the dig site.

Picture of the faces of uncovered warriors.

One of many recovered stone disks/pipes/artifacts from the area. 

The famous four horse chariot seen in all of the pictures-in its own glass case.

These cardboard cutouts were outside the gift shop of one of the buildings-we couldn't resist imitating them.

One of the pits where they were "still working" -  we think that the tools were left there to make the museum seem more interesting to people, since most everything has been recovered already that can be. 

Broken pieces uncovered in one of the sites.

Kneeling archer

One of the soldiers

Standing archer.

Joe with a fake jade statue of a soldier.

I paid 10 yuan to take this picture with the warriors that they had uncovered- it was the only way to get close enough to take a picture with one.

The famous pit with all of the warriors lined up.

One of many souvenirs they tried to sell to people- they take a picture of you and make you look like a warrior.

Lots of businesses in the area (including our hostel) had statues outside them, allowing us to take pictures up close and personal, just not with the real ones.

The museum was really cool and I'm so glad we got to go. After learning about the warriors multiple times in school, I had really wanted to make it to Xian on our trip, so I was very excited. It took a lot of effort getting there and back, especially by bus, but it was all a part of the adventure.