Yeehow Everybody, (that's what hello in Chinese sounds like)

After seeing Pandas and Summer Palace on Tuesday we left Beijing yesterday. Very proud of their pandas but don't think they realise we have seen them at London Zoo. While we were in Beijing we went on our rickshaw ride but it was a bicycle and we were quite hurt when they made us have one each. Don't understand why! We also ate with a local family. We weren't sure at first as the house was very basic but clean and we had a good time and the food was excellent in the end.

We have a new guide in Xian called Chris and she is lovely but we have been hysterical as she sounds like a female Fred Elliott I say a female Fred Elliott. If you get our meaning she repeats the last part of every sentence, every senetence.
We shouldn't take the piss as her English is certainly better than our Mandarin.

Well we are beginning to feel like we have gone back to school with all the Chinese history we are learning. We went back to 6000 b.c. today and visited site of Banpo people. They were quite ingenious put our tribesmen to shame. Then we went to the Teracotta Warrior site which is the reason we wanted to come here. Absolutely amazing to think they have been underground for 2000 years. The first emperor created his empire in Xian - the Qin dynasty. The warriors were to protect the emperor's burial ground.

Ray's culinary skills have also improved today as we had lessons in Chinese dumpling making (photos to follow still having trouble downloading)

Xian is a city with walls which are 13.8 kilometres long. The choices were to walk round, ride a bike or take electric car. Guess what we did - you're right the electric car. We were frightened the tyres might go flat on the bikes - that's our excuse anyway,

Tonight was the Tang Dynasty Cultural show followed by dumpling banquet. Yumee. Once again we managed to eat plenty even though we weren't that hungry. The show was excellent much better than the Beijing Opera.

We leave for Guilin tomorrow which is further south. Thanks for all your messages they are appreciated. Photos may not follow till we are in Hong Kong in a few days.

Take care

Jen and Happy Budha