Xi’an, our next stop was about a 12 hr. train ride south of Beijing. Sleeping in our assigned bunks was a trial, as we were tightly packed in. The city itself was proof of how history can be found right in your front yard. The huge wall/ gate of the city stretched on for miles around the city. We biked and walked past many workers preparing for Lunar New Year celebrations.
More impressive than the wall was seeing the pits of the Terracotta Warriors. These stone soldiers were built for the tomb/ mausouleum of the First Qin emperor, but were only discovered in 1974. They were massive, both in size and in character.