After only a few hours sleep we were woken up by a knock on the door from the housekeeping staff. Shouting out to them didn't work so Dave got up and put our 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door - should have done that last night! We went straight back to sleep and when we woke up again it was 1pm! That's what happens when you're exhausted and you're in a 'black-out' room with no windows! Luckily we have 5 full days to see the sights of Beijing so we can afford to h...

This morning we ate breakfast in the traveller's cafe at the hostel and met Hamish and Kat again. We agreed to go to see the Terracotta Warriors together and met after we'd checked out and left our bags at reception. To get there, we caught the 306 public bus to the train station adn ten found what we thought was the bus to the Warriors, so we got on and thankfully we were right! The woman yelling out where the bus was going through a megaphone outside in Chines...

We'd booked a trip through the hostel for this morning which we were very excited about....to a Panda rescue and breeding centre! We got picked up at 7:30am for the hour and a half drive to the centre out in teh countryside around Xi'an. Also on the trip were a Welsh guy on holiday, Bruno from Argentina and Hamish and Kat from Perth, Australia. We got chatting to Hamish and Kat and soon found out that Kat's parents are from Middlesbrough and emigrated to Australi...

Our first full day in Xi'an...we had a lie-in and enjoyed a big breakfast in the traveller's cafe at our hostel. Then we headed to explore the city...our first stop were the ancient city walls, built in 1370 during the Ming dynasty. Xi'an is one of the four cities in China where the city walls are still standing and their total perimeter is 14km! We planned to walk around part of the walls, and went to the South Gate to get onto the top. When we got up there, we ...

We woke up to more rain today - there's been a lot of rain since we arrived in China, hope it's not going to be like this every day before we leave! We enjoyed another delicious hostel breakfast before packing our bags and storing them at reception, as our flight to Xi'an is not until 9pm. We watched another film from their huge collection, something a bit more intellectual this time - J Edgar starring Leonardo Di Caprio. We spent the rest of the day killing tim...