Today we managed to get up early and made our way to the terracotta warriors. We were naughty again and had KFC for breakfast but in our defence all the street stalls looked really dirty round there. And the noodle woman that I have had noodles from every single day since we've been here (they are so good!) wasn't by the hostel as we were out so early. Pit 1 where there are over 6,000 models was spectacular. It's amazing to see that they all had different faces and hairstyles, even boots. My favourite types were the ones kneeling down, I'm not quite sure why though! The horses were pretty impressive as well. We did pit 2 and 3 first which aren't as big and still have a lot more digging to do, so it was nice to leave pit 1 until last.
I think my favourite part of the day was a man trying to sell Ben some small figures of the different warriors. He followed him round for ages, haggling with himself but at Ben. I left him on his own just to watch him laughing to himself and trying to escape! Speaking of men with Ben; when we first arrived in Xi'an, we were only there for a couple of hours before some man gave Ben his number. He was working on a stall right outside our hostel and was quite helpful at first, telling us about places to go and how to get there but then he wouldn't stop talking and said he could be our guide and take us to the army or the tombs or help us with anything. We couldn't get away. He saw us again yesterday and ran after us. One of the girls in the hostel was laughing at him and told us not to believe him. We need a back entrance to the hostel to sneak in!
When we got back to the hostel (I'll skip the wasting time and money on ringing Natwest again)! We had a nice little rest outside drinking a couple of beers in the fading sunshine. It was very relaxing. I feel a bit more at home here than Beijing. I think it's because of the area we're in. If it wasn't so nice then I don't think I'd have liked Xi'an so much. There were some randomers who we've seen a couple of times that are a mixture of English and American that live here and come to the hostel just to drink. I reckon it's because this is the only place where we've had a cold beer, and it's 50p a beer. They were playing a game where every time they drink a cup of beer they have to do 20 press ups...not my kind of game! There are lots of bats around the hostel at night, they're only small! And speaking of animals, there are dogs everywhere. Mostly little ones but you do get some big ones. Ben asked me today if we'd end up going home with a dog-if this was the end of our trip then possibly!
We went to the night market again tonight to eat. We got our beers and decided to test out the meat, it looked clean enough. It was beef on skewers in a fairly spicy sauce. It was so good! We got our noodles from last night as well but got one to share this time. After we finished eating a young lady came over with a little girl. The girl said 'My name is Nicole' in English and was being really shy. We told her our names and asked how old she was. She was 5. It was her auntie who had brought her over and her family were across the road so she kept coming and going. She knew colours when we pointed to what we were wearing and the table, chair, cat, dog..she did point to our beers though and ask what they were! We decided to nip up to our hostel and get her one of the pens we had brought away with us. I acquired a few from the 2-1 home win over City. We gave it her and showed her the pen and tried to explain the score. She went jumping over to her family to show them and they brought us both a big beer each which we didn't expect at all but was much appreciated. We carried on playing with Nicole, with words (she was eating ice cream so we said it had been too hot for us and played some hand clapping games with her) and she came back with a chocolate ice lolly for us both. It was quite touching! Those pens were supposed to help us bribe or find United fans who would appreciate them, not to get us something in return! She then rang her uncle in Beijing who could speak English and spoke to us both saying how excited she was to speak to us. When her and her family left they gave us a card with their number on, I'm not quite sure what for but it was nice anyway, maybe we'll see them again tomorrow. Back at the hostel now having another beer outside and Ben has been invited to play with the locals which I'm sure he's loving as he hasn't played football for a few weeks.