We caught another night train from Pingyao to Xi'an, which was ok but not as good as the last one as we were right by the toilets and we had some big time snorers above us!! Xi'an is one of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history and it is from Xi'an that you can visit the Terracotta Warriors. We stayed in a fairly new hostel which was more like a hotel! On the first day we met a couple who had been teaching in China for the past 5 months, Yasmin and Oliver. I quizzed them to death about teaching and to be honest it sounds grim. They each had 100 children in their class! As neither of them had had much contact with Westerners for the past 5 months we decided it would be nice to go and see the warriors together, so on our first full day in Xi'an we went off to see the Terracotta Warriors. The warriors and horses found date from 3rd century BC and were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers digging a well. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses however there is still much more to be uncovered. The terracotta figures are life-sized and vary in height, uniform and hairstyle in accordance with rank. Most of the figures also held real weapons such as spears, swords, or crossbows and some of the swords are still very sharp due to what they were coated in. Not only are there figures of soldiers in the pits but also the Emperors staff as in stable boys and animal carers. There were also lots of different animals some of which were the real deal and had been buried alive. It is also thought that some people may have been buried alive also. We really enjoyed our trip to the warriors and found it hard to get our heads around how preserved the army is and how massive the site was.

That night we had a dumpling party at the hostel, this consists of us filling and making our own traditional dumplings then eating them! All for free! It is a nice way to meet other travellers and to get chatting about each other's routes. We met a few people that had already done South East Asia and they gave us some tips on what's what in Vietnam.

The next day we went for a walk around the city with Yasmin and Oliver. Xi'an is an ancient walled city and is a much bigger and more modern Pingyao. We walked to the cities Drum and Bell Tower (they have a Drum and Bell Tower in every city). The Drum tower is right next to the Muslim quarter so we had a walk around the market and decided to come back at night to sample some of the tasty street food. The reason there is a Muslim Quarter in Xi'an is because it was the starting point of the famous Silk Road, Xi'an attracted traders from West since 1st century BC. During the 8th century AD, Xi'an was the largest city in the world with over one million inhabitants, among which one third of them were foreigners. The ancestors of these Muslims dwelled in Xian with Han people harmoniously and built a Great Mosque for worship simultaneously.

In the evening we headed back to the Muslim Quarter, by this time it was much busier and there was a real festival vibe about the place. There were little stalls selling all sorts of food and the woman wore the traditional Muslim head scarf's (it was a real home from home!). We manned up and tried some of our first real street food which included squid on sticks, quail eggs on sticks, and something else on a stick that we could identify but tasted really good! There were twinkling lights in the trees and the street was really buzzing. There was one stall with tiny wooden bird cages filled with crickets and they were so loud! On our way home we walked through a little square where there were a group of woman doing a big dance routine to some Chinese music while men and children watched, it was great how they weren't bothered what people thought and they were making use of the nice public area, I was tempted to join in! I had taken a picture of an old guy earlier that day there who was dancing on his own with some feathers, he looked so happy. The gates of the wall were lit up beautifully too, we really enjoyed our time in Xi'an.

A few things we've learned about Xi'an:

• People seem to be getting friendlier the further south we go
• Choose carefully and street is very nice and fun
• At one point it was the biggest city in the world
• The Terracotta army was only discovered in 1974
• Never sleep next to the toilets on a night train
• Cheap warm beer tastes sweeter than cold expensive beer!