Pu__y in my hostel room and Born to Terracotta

Yesterday I awoke to the sound of paws scratching the bed in my hostel, and the sound of scratching fur. It turns out one of my roommates let the hostel cat in our room. It's a gentle cat, and while I sleeping with a woman might seem unusual, sleeping with a cat in the room feels perfectly normal, as I have had cats for over 20 years.

After waking up, it was time for breakfast. There is a buffet breakfast at the hostel for about $6.00, which seems to much for me, so I took a walk outside, and noticed someone with a storefront with a lady with a giant pot and a spoon, and who was serving sometime of goop to a long line of people-so I had the goop, which was some type of dark chicken soup with hot sauce, for around $1.00 for breakfast.

Then I went back to the hostel for the tour of the Terracotta warriors. The tour guide picked me up about 10 for the 1 and 1/2 hour trip to the warriors. After getting the tickets, we we're showing three different rooms, one with the warriors in pretty bad condition (just pieces of the torso, heads, and other body parts we're visible), and other parts with the warriors in better condition, and finally the section with the warriors in the best condition. It turns out the warriors we're for the tomb of Qunshi Huangdi, the first emporer of the Qin era. I also found out that this was all discovered by a farmer in 1974 on his land.

After seeing the warriors it was time for the two must-haves on any group tour:

(A) A lunch at a "bargain price", (where I believe the tour guide eats for free). This lunch, which was the same price as breakfast at the hostel, was actually quite good. There was a lot of different dishes served on a lazy susan, and I was quite full.

(B) An opportunity to buy stuff. This started with a tea presentation, where a lady gave us a choice of ten different teas to choose from (we all chose three), each tea claiming to cure different aliments, such as diabetes, indigestion, etc. And of course, a chance to buy the teas, tea sets, etc. It was somewhat interesting, as the teas we're poured on certain instruments which tell how hot the tea was.
. Then a special treat: Selling books on Xi'an, was none other but the farmer who discovered the warriors on his land:

Finally, we went to look at the tomb where the Emporer was buried. We couldn't get real close, or close at all. We we're told he was buried in a hill in the distance, and that we can take a picture of the hill-that was as close as we could get.

After the 1 1/2 hour drive back to the hostel, i took a short nap. I then walked back to the Bell Tower at the central part of the town, and through a market selling weird types of food. I bought anther serving of lots of fruit, with the guy who cuts up all the pieces, with dance music and a speaker through a megaphone. I then had some type of bread with cheese, and finally spicy potatoes, all from vendors. I looked at the Grand Mosque in the center of town, which was modest compared to those in the Arabic countries I have been to. I made it back to the hostel, and had a few beers with some folks from my room.