After Beijing, we flew to the city of Xi'an, home to the famous terracotta soldiers. The terracotta soldiers are hundreds of soldiers made out of clay that were modeled after real warriors and buried in the ground to guard the tomb of China's first emperor in his afterlife. One thing you may not know about the terracotta warriors is that archeologists have only uncovered a small part of them. Also, the tomb is the biggest one ever made, even larger than the Egyptian pyramids. Unlike pictures you may have seen, many of the soldiers are still buried or shattered into small pieces. This is because hundreds of years ago, invaders from different parts of China set the tomb on fire and collapsed it. When we were there, we got special access to see the warriors up close. This was really cool!

Our China trip is great so far, but all this Asian food makes me sure miss the food back home. I decided that we'll do great with the food once we get to Europe, but I still have six months to go until then. I don't think Bhutan is going to be so fun, food-wise, but that's not for another month. In the meantime, we're looking forward to the food in Japan since we all really love sushi. Speaking of home, it has been really cool being on a tour because we have other really nice Americans around to talk to and we also have experts and guides along that help us learn about what we were seeing.

I'll write more about China next time.