We also took a long walk Wednesday evening through Wangjianglou Park, which sits alongside the river, contains a wonderful display of over 150 various kinds of bamboo, and is dedicated to Xue Tao, a female poet from the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Wangjianglou is a charming place to take a walk and we can understand why the park is an area for locals to do their evening exercises, as we saw many people walking, running and dancing. After our walk through the park, we were able to experience another teahouse that was more in line with what we had heard about the Chengdu unique tea culture, where the tea is served by a “tea doctor” using a special brass tea pot with a 3 foot long spout. It is quite a performance as you watch the tea doctor pour tea from great distances into a cup or glass of tea. The pouring was almost like watching a martial artist in a fight scene, although there was no enemy, only teacups. It truly was an interesting sight and the only way to understand and appreciate it is to experience it.
Once on site, we toured the area a bit backwards (completely unintentionally) as we visited Pit No. 2, then No. 3 then Pit No. 1, however, we were definitely pleased and would highly recommend this sequence. Pit No. 1 is the most well known of the three and the first to be discovered, so most visitors begin there and then visit the other smaller two pits. Because we saw the two smaller pits first, we got to follow an uncovering process of the warriors and the horses and ended up with a much greater appreciation for the magnitude of the whole archeological dig, and also had a great build up to the most impressive sight of Pit No. 1.