For our day of checking out and awaiting the overnight train to Xi'an, we killed some time by visiting the nearby Lama Temple. It had lots of Buddha's inside the numerous buildings, with monks in their robes wandering around and lots of people burning incense and offering it to the Buddha statues. One of the statues of a Buddha was something like 18m high, it was amazing! One was playing a guitar as well, which seemed a little strange! You couldn't take any pictures inside the shrines though which was a shame.
If I thought I was getting used to what China had to offer and the way things were done then I was wrong. The train station was absolutely mental. It was far too busy but easier to find where to go and our carriage than I thought. We were in a room of 4, Ben and I situated on the top 2 bunks. The other 2 people were girls similar to my age, 1 with a baby which I thought would be a disaster. There were no ladders for the top bunk and it was pretty high. Ben had to give me a leg up and I still struggled, plus I couldn't stop laughing. Getting down to go and brush our teeth was of similar difficulty and getting back up for the second time harder than I remembered! That's when I started typing this blog and I am planning not to get down again until we've reached Xi'an!
I didn't get down again! The baby woke us up about 4am and then I couldn't get back to sleep...the girls were pretty much the noisy ones though, they just didn't care. They got off at about 6 though so we managed another couple of hours.
Xi'an was not what I expected. It is a lot bigger than I thought, very busy and I think the traffic is possibly worse than Beijing's. The hostel seems nice enough. The only thing is that we have downgraded to sharing the bathroom and the toilets don't seem great. It's in a nice area though. There are lots of street stalls just outside the front door. I had some noodles from a stall where they just poured a little bit of salad and some spicy sauce on. They were really nice and cost 30p!! That was probably the tourist price too.
We walked the length from the south city walls up to the north, to go and book our train to Shanghai for Saturday. It was a lot of hard work. They didn't have the cheaper beds so we're in first class again. Can't complain apart from the price. We were nearly on a 20 hour trip as well, but managed to get a faster one of 14 hours.
Tonight we ate locally, we had some lovely beef then a chicken dish of more bones. We've agreed not to have chicken again and that we're going to try some street food tomorrow night. We walked through some stalls and it seemed like a really good atmosphere, not to mention cheap. We're going to try to go to a kind of bar street about midnight and see if we can locate the football. I'm not too hopeful though. Tomorrow we're planning seeing the local sights. Go up the city walls, see the bell tower, some pagodas, then do the terracotta army independently on Thursday.