Soldiers and Dumplings for protection

The adoption process involves a lot of interactions with government offices. These interactions are necessary to finalize the adoption, secure copies of her birth certificate, adoptions certificate, obtain passports (for Lily), visa's, etc. It is a typical hurry up and wait process. All the paperwork from Monday and Tuesday is being processed so that we can pick up the completed documents on Thursday and Friday. That left us with some down time for sight seeing.

Wednesday was our first down day and we used it to sleep in and catch up from the pace we have been running. Christian was sick with a 24 hour bug. It was raining outside. So we spent most of that day in the hotel. We got to Skype with Peter, Rachael, Adam and Quinn so Lily got to see the other half of the family. She said "Hi, Peter", "Hi, Rachael", ... right on down the line. She had a family picture that we had sent to her about a month ago. It looks like she has study that photo to death. When we first met she pulled out that photo and wanted us to go around the picture telling her who each person was.

By Thursday morning Christian was feeling much better. We headed a small town 30 miles away that is home to the excavation of the Terra Cotta soldiers. These soldiers surround a large mound that serves as the tomb to Emporer Qin. The soldiers were about a mile from the tomb and were created to protect Qin and his family in the afterlife.

To date they have unearthed about 8000 of these soldiers. It was amazing to see. They were found in the early 1970's by some farmers digging a well. Today the fields are covered by a building that allows them to continue the excavation protected from the elements.

In the early 70's all the land was owned by the government, so the farmer's discovery was not the financial jackpot you might expect. To compensate the farmers, they (there are four of them) take turns sitting in the gift shop and if you buy a picture book of the Terra Cotta soldiers, they will sign it. Ruthi had Lily stand by the farmer and snapped their picture. The farmer then held out his had to Ruthi and asked for 20 yuan ($3).

We heard about a restaurant in X'ian that specialized in dumplings. Our guide said that we would need reservations because tonight is the first day of winter. She explained the chinese tradition of eating dumplings on the first day of winter. The dumpling looks like a ear, and so if you eat dumplings on the firts day of winter it will protect you from sickness (ear aches I guess) through the winter. For this reason the restaurant would be very crowded. We were game so she made the reservation, gave us directions to the restaurant, and wrote a note in Chinese that detailed our intended food order. I felt a bit like the 1st grader with a note for teacher. The food was great. At least 20 different varieties of dumplings (pumpkin, tomato, chicken, pork, squid, walnut, rice, and several unknow and best not known). We left full and well protected for the on-coming winter.

On the way home a vendor was selling a little rubberband launched whirlly bird. It had a little light on it and he shot it 40 feet into the air and it came down like a helicopter. This caught Lily and the boys eye and they wanted to get one (5 yuan - less than a dollar). We got five and found an open area and started launching them - we spent a hour just launching, catching and laughing at these whirly birds. Lily had a great time catching them and bringing them back to whoever was launching them. When we were done. Lily picked up the toy, pulled out the little plactic wrap that in came in, tucked it back into the wrap, handed it to me and said, "let's go". She grabbed Ruthi and my hand and we were off to the hotel.