We are in Xian, about to leave tonight for Chengdu to see the pandas! Yesterday we went to see the Terracotta army, which is a series of pit sthat was uncov ered in the mid 70s. There are literally thousands of life-size warriors that are guarding an Emperor's tomb. None of the statues that they uncovered were in one piece so it was a huge undertaking to get them back into tip-top shape. The sheer number of statues was impressive enough but to know that the...

Trans-Siberian : Ulaan Batar to Beijing We somehow managed to not find our tour guide on the morning we were supposed to leave UB, so we headed to the train station on our own. Luckily, there was a driver to take us so it wasn’t a problem at all. We jumped on the train, ignored which beds our tickets said we were supposed to sleep in and arranged ourselves in the same groups we had been in on previous train trips (4 people to a berth). We settled in...

More about the Trans-Siberian… We tried to get stocked up on some food before we boarded the train in moscow. We had no idea how much food wewould need, as we heard that we’d be able to buy fresh-made stuff on the platforms. Sure enough, we had more than enough food (and Joel and I were the ones who had bought the least amount of stuff!). The babushkas (grandmothers) kept us well stocked along the way. I think the best thing that we brought with u...