After a bit of a lie-in and a session getting back in touch with civilization on the internet we headed out to walk the old city walls of Xian. They are apparently the widest defensive city walls still standing in the world (up to 18 metres at the base in places) so we set out thinking it would be an interesting walk. Unfortunately, however, we found the only attraction is the wall itself as the view down into the city is pretty charmless. If we hadn't been to Pingyao we might have stuck with it but it sadly paled in comparison so we climbed down just 1/4 of the way round.

Instead we set out for the 'Folk House', an historic 18th century city offocial's residence which now holds a number of modern Chinese works of art followed by the 'Great Mosque' which is a particularly Chinese version of a Mosque, containing a pagoda in lieu of any minarets. The Mosque contained a huge wooden gate dating from the 16th century as well as having the entire Qu'ran written inside the main hall. Both sites were very interesting and good value and we were pleased we'd given up on the walls.

For dinner we remained in Xian's Muslim quarter and headed for a restaurant offering dishes from the Western Chinese school of cooking, reknowned for being fairly spicy. With little but the title of the dishes to go on we took the waitress's recommendation and ordered a number of dishes including the intriguingly titled 'Toothpick Beef'. When it arrived it was true to its moniker and was bits of beef on toothpicks. We sampled it and realised we were going to need more beer. It was the hottest thing I've ever tasted. We sweated and snivelled our way through and managed to almost finish all the meat. What was left on the dish was the remains of almost 20 heads of chillis with all the seeds still there. We headed out to find beer to quell our raging tongues!

We found a collection of theme bars on the instruction of our new best friend at the hostel (aka Jackie Chan's son, honestly, dead spit!) and headed into a 'German Beer Hall'. Within 15 minutes we'd been treated to hardcore RnB on the stereo, a live solo pianist, back to the stereo for Christina Aguilera's latest ditty, some piped German Oompah followed by a live solo electric violinist. Fearing that the heat of the chillis was causing us to hallucinate we piled into the next bar to find the staff in cowboy hats and a band playing American rock classics all facing a column in the middle of the room. The final straw came in the next bar where under a snazzy 'showtime' banner a bald guitarist and a cheesy keyboardist had a flaming row and the guitarist stormed off, it was time for bed!