Forgotten for more than 2,000 years until accidentally rediscovered in 1974, Qin Bingmayong or famously known in English “the Qin Terracotta Army” was maybe the second most famous world heritage site of China after the Great Wall, strangely that both sites were built by the order of the same man, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified Chinese Empire.

Another long bus journey from Xi’an train station, the tourist bus took me to the city of Lintong famous for its local persimmon and where Qin Bingmayong was located. After Longmen, I was not surprised to find another tourist complex welcomed me, but this one was bigger and more commercialized with American fast-food shops and mini army of souvenir factories. Later I found out that there was electric car service that directly transported you to the inner gate of Qin Bingmayong skipping those entire crazy things!

Qin Bingmayong was the large complex of four modern exhibition halls as the Chinese had nicely transformed this archaeological site to be a well displayed museum. The largest look liked gym building or called pit 1 was where the famous terracotta army situated, under the protective roof the image of countless rows of clay soldiers and horses were astonishing, even though I had seen many pictures of this site before, I still surprised to see the real one, and I was overwhelmed by the grand size and the realistic faces of each soldier, I just wondered how could they did this amazing thing?

During my visit, Chinese archaeologists were excavating more area in pit 1; it was very nice experience to see these people in action inside such important place. For pit 2 and pit 3, there were fewer excavated statues but equally interesting especially in pit 2 where there were 5 very good condition clay statues on displays allowing too closely admiring all incredible realistic details. Another building was a museum housing two beautiful bronze chariots and weapons of the first emperor and the history of the museum.

Qin Bingmayong was another great site that China offered to the list of world heritage. My second but short visit to China happened because I would like to test my Chinese after study for a while (quite confusing after I encountered many Shannxi and Henan dialects) and it was 11 years from my last visit. China, I saw a decade ago was a totally different country I had seen, this country changed dramatically and become the economic powerhouse with well infrastructure and clean toilets! I looked at the long list of world heritage in China and hoped that I have not to wait another decade to visit this fascinating country.