China Trip, Xian 11th Nov - 12th Nov

After a plane flight from Chengdu, we have finally arrived in Xian. Being 1 of the ancient capitals of China, Xian is a city I have always wanted to visit. On the evening of our arrival, we were brought to a Halal restaurant for steamboat. Yes, China does have Muslims, and they form the 2nd or 3rd largest minority in China, especially in the west and northwestern region. All Halal restaurants in China will have the descriptor "Qing Zhen" （清真）to indicate that it sells Halal food.

After dinner, we proceeded to Big Wild Goose Pagoda Square （大雁塔）to watch the musical fountain. Every night, the fountain performance will start at 8:30pm and last for about 15mins. Although Singapore's Sentosa had something similar to offer, the musical fountain there beats us in sheer scale due to the size of the fountain square. The water fountain displays were quite limited, but it was a treat for the eyes nonetheless. I believe quite a number of students used their video recording function to record the entire performance.

The next morning, the coach took us to Qin Shi Huang's tomb with the world famous terracotta warriors. I have always thought they were all biege in colour till the tour guide explained that there is no current technology that can preserve the colours on the warriors, hence the majority of the warriors lay buried in their original state. Also, the Chinese have detected a great amount of mecury surrounding Qin Shi Huang's tomb, suggesting that he had trapped the entire tomb to prevent tomb robbers from robbing his grave. Since there was no way of ensuring that the items within the tomb would not be destroyed by the mercury, the Chinese decided to leave the tomb alone. The sheer size of the mound of the tomb is enough for us to imagine the grandeur of the entire tomb.