Hey All,

On Sunday we walked to the 'Big WIld Goose Pagoda'. It ended up being quite a hot sunny day. We watched an amazing dancing fountain show, where the fountains movements where choreographed to music. We entered the grounds of the pagoda and were met by some truely amazing sights - beautiful buddhist buildings, quiet scenic spots, walks through pretty gardens, pretty little pagoda's in the gardens and interesting stone carvings.

In the evening, we went for a stroll along Xi'an city walls. (Xi'an is one of the few remaining cities in China with an intact wall surrounding it's city centre). It felt like we were walking in the clouds, high above the city. We decided in the end to walk the whole wall, which was 9km after originally planning to do half of it. It was tiring but definately worth it for the views we had.

Yesterday we packed our bags and headed to the airport, it was pouring with rain so we bought a couple of umbrellas as the bus stop was quite a walk away. We got plenty of funny looks and stares (westeners - and with big rucksacks!) :-) The whole day it poured with rain, just like a typical English summers day really but a bit warmer. We caught our evening flight to Guilin, a smalish city further south in China. The Air China flight was about 1 hour 30 min, and the food was surprisingly good compared with what we expected! :-) We arrived at Guilin and got our bags almost immediately. We had booked a transfer and the man was there to pick us up in a lovely air conditoned car, its really hot here. About 32 deg when we arrived at 9pm! We stayed last night in a nearby hostel as the place we had booked was full. Today we moved to to the place we booked and it is lovely. Out of the window we can see the pagodas that are in the picture above. We are off out now to explore the city a bit. Will update you soon.

Love

Hol and Pete

xXx