spending a day with emperor qin's warriors

If I ever get the opportunity to do a complete tour of China, the three historical monuments top on my to-visit list in no particular order of preference are: the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and his Terracotta Army.

The moment I read that these entombed warriors of China's First Emperor are travelling to Sydney, Australia, I decided I have got to go see them. Over 120 rare objects featuring 10 complete terracotta warrior figures dug up from Emperor Qin's burial site are now being exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 13 March 2011.





I was ushered into a little theatre to watch a short 15min introductory video on the background of this recent archaelogical discovery before entering the exhibition hall. The clip was very informative but I found the exhibition slightly disappointing; not having read the event details beforehand, I had expected to see more of an army on display instead of just the 10 lonely figures. I did not feel that such an exhibition of this scale warrants an admission fee of $20 per adult even though these artifacts had been transported a great distance.

Nothing beats seeing these grand afterlife armies all lined up in battle formation in the excavation pits over an impressive 56 square kilometres of land in their hometown in Xi'an. So it was with no hesitation at all that I entered the lucky draw upon exiting the exhibition hoping to win 2 tickets to an all expense paid trip to see these warriors up close and personal. Wish me luck!