seven hours in x’ian on easter

on easter morning, we flew from guilin to x’ian. we had seven hours from when we landed until our overnight train for beijing left from x’ian’s central train station. since there is no branch of our church in x’ian, we tried to recreate some church meetings together on the airplane (something we’d do throughout our time in china and nepal). we studied and talked about the glorious reality of the resurrection of jesus, recognizing that it was going to be a very unique easter indeed.

we dropped off our bags at a left luggage place and headed off to see the terracotta soldiers. we thought we’d check that out and have some time to explore x’ian’s city walls before getting on our train. weeeeelll, getting to the soldiers and back was quite a chaotic adventure and we just barely made it back in time! we’d love to come back to the city of x’ian one day!

our journey to see the terracotta soldiers is a long story…but in a nutshell: we stood in an unnecessary line for about an hour, the bus took much longer than expected, you’d think it would be really easy to find the entrance to see the  soldiers but i assure you it is not, it was craaaaazy crowded since we were there during the tomb sweeping holiday and people were off work, the entrance fee to see the excavation site can not be paid with credit card, and we tried three atms that did not work before hiring a guide who promised to buy our tickets and be paid in us dollars. phew! we ended up being so grateful for our guide peter, not just because he got us in, but he also helped us navigate the packed crowds and see everything in under thirty minutes so we could get back on the bus (which was another adventure including long lines that were fruitless and bus drivers yelling at the top of their lungs) and to the train station on time.

haha, it was all pretty hilarious and quite awesome…and totally worth it because the terracotta army was absolutely in-credible to see in real life (even in fast-forward mode since we had to hurry).

    

seriously amazing. we squeezed in some easter celebrating too by talking about how because of christ we don’t have to worry about having an army with us in our tombs to protect us in the afterlife :)

^^ our main man, peter. so glad he came around and offered to help! ^^

^^ we actually ran to the entrance to the city walls once we got off the bus, thinking we could look around just for five minutes before going into the train station…but it was closed! just another little addition to the craziness of the day! ^^

we got on our train and ate the jelly-beans-in-eggs i brought all the way from america while reading together more about the miracle of the resurrection and what it means for us. yes, it was certainly a unique easter to remember!