They didn't tell us the Terracotta Warriors closed at 5pm

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Hello everyone! I appologize for the lack of updates - I'm going to place the blame on the lack of good internet connections and because there has been so much to do lately that just sitting down or sleeping has been difficult to come by. Since I'm currently in Thailand I am going to do several small updates for each previous destination with pictures and a few stories of what I've been up to, but not as detailed as my first entry so I can get everyone up to date.

Anyways, my time in Xian was fairly short, but it is certainly an interesting city that still has its original walls surrounding the city. Simply enormous in size and incredibly thick. I stayed at a really cool hostel right by the south entrance of the wall (you can walk from the south wall to the north wall in about 20-30 minutes) that only cost about $4 a night and that included a free beer at the bar.

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The main thing to see in Xian is the Terracotta Warriors so after my first day of just wandering around town checking out the markets and eating plenty of snacks on a stick I got directions on how to get to the Terracotta Warriors for the next day. You just take bus 603 to the train station then hop on bus 306 which will take you all the way to the warriors. Well I managed to get on bus 603 no problem but after about a 20 minute bus ride I still hadn't seen the train station, only something I thought may be the train station a few stops back. So I got off the bus and started walking back the way I came. What I thought was the train station was something completely different and I'm still not entirely sure what it was. So with no train station and all kinds of new parts of town to check out I wandered toward the Muslim quarter to check out the wide variety of shops, restaurants, butchers, etc. It was quite a scene with lots of Chinese muslims staring at me more than I was staring at them.

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That night I met a couple of Germans, Arne and Julia, at the hostel cafe and we decided to attempt to go to the Terracotta Warriors the following day since I never made it there the first day. Same directions: take bus 603 to the train station and hop on bus 306 which will take you all the way to the warriors. So the next day we get on bus 603 and still don't come across any train station! After a while Arne figured out that we had gone the wrong direction on bus 603! No one ever told us which direction to take bus 603 and we figured they just meant the bus stop just next to our hostel. So we get off the bus, run across the street, catch the next 603 heading back into town, find the train station, run around looking for bus 306, find bus 306, and we were on our way to see the Terracotta Warriors. By now it was a little past 4pm and we were told the warriors were open until 6pm so we figured we could run around there for about an hour before they closed, take some pictures, and say we saw it. No problem, right? Wrong. We finally arrive at the warriors after getting dropped off at the wrong spot and having to buy another full priced bus ticket to take us the last few miles. We jump off the bus and start running across the empty, partially snow covered parking lot trying to figure out where the entrance was in the mess of souvenir shops. We determined that the entrance was off to the right but something wasn't right about it - the gates were closed. We arrived only to find out that the Terracotta Warriors stopped letting people in around 5 if not earlier. Can't really do much now besides try to find a bus back to Xian, because those stop running shortly after 6pm from what we were told, but who knows how reliable that advice was so we didn't waste any time catching the next bus back.

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Well my time in Xian had run out and I never actually got to see the Terracotta Warriors. I don't really mind though - the adventure just getting there only to find it closed was probably more memorable anyways. Julia and Arne went back the next day after I had left and said it was neat, but certainly not worth all of the hassle that we encountered.