One of the countries I have been wanting to visit for a long time now is China. It's been high on my list of places I want to go since 2003. Unfortunately my husband recently went, so it is likely to be a while before we make it out that way. So when I heard that the Terracotta Warriors were on exhibit at the National Geographic Museum I thought I should go see them. When I found out that they were giving away 200 free tickets on Wednesdays @1730, I thought I should definitely go. Given today was Thanksgiving eve, I was able to get out of work just in time to pick my husband up and drive into the city by 5. I dropped my hubby off while I looked for a place to park, annoyed as hell about having to drive in rush hour traffic (even though it was not as bad as it normally would be) and look for parking (no street parking was allowed during rush hour). Eventually I gave in to garage parking right by the museum, which worked out just fine since it was only $5 for the evening after 5pm. When I hurried over to join Brad though, I was very disappointed to find out we would not be able to get tickets for that day. Apparently people have been standing in line since 2pm or so and there were more than 200 people already in line - at least according to the staff working there. On top of that, all tickets for purchase were sold out until December 1. I debated for a bit about whether to purchase the $12 tickets for the first weekend in December, but when I found out there were only about 15 of the warriors (of the 8000+ in China), it seemed kinda silly. So we gave up on the exhibit and decided to go check out the photography gallery at the museum.
Whilst looking for the gallery, we accidentally ended up in the Terracotta Warrior exhibit through one of the back entrances. Once we realized where we were and that no one is chasing after us to get out, we figured we'll stay and check it out (especially after all the troubles of getting there). Perhaps because of the advertisement for "free" tickets, there were many people in this tiny exhibit. Yes, tiny. Well, to be honest, we only saw half of the exhibit because it was split into two sections and we didn't try to sneak into the other half. In any case, the half we saw consisted of roughly 5 warriors and 1 horse statue, along with other small artifacts like weapons, armors, accessories, etc. There was also plenty of information on the Qin dynasty - not that you couldn't get the same information from a book or online. I pretty much left the exhibit glad that I didn't drive into DC for nothing and that I didn't pay to get in. Maybe there was something really awesome in the other half of the exhibit, but I couldn't imagine what. Regardless, I do plan on visiting China someday, and for what people pay to see this exhibit, I will see the warriors in its original setting (nevermind the fact that I have to fly over there). For those of you who have no plans to visit China though, it might be worth a visit if you have nothing better to do with your $12. The exhibit is on through end of March.
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