(Written by Matt)

We woke up on our last day in Xian at around 10am after having the best nights sleep so far. (Nothing to do with the alcohol we had been drinking the previous night to prepare ourselves for our group karaoke session!) Our last night in Xian was very fun. Lilian, our tour guide, had organised a karaoke night for everyone. When we first heard about it we were a bit dubious and as we dont really have the best singing voices (Holly), we weren't sure about the whole event. We thought it would b a good laugh though and a chance to laugh at a few of the others in the group.

We all met at around 6pm before the Karaoke was due to start at 8.30, this gave us ample drinking time to ready ourselves. We bundled into one room in our hotel and started to play drinking card games. The beer from the local shop was around 40p per can so we stocked up enough to see us through. After a while people were starting to get a bit merry! (Holly in particular)

On the way to the 'Party Mix bar' (quality name) we must have looked like a right bunch of English louts! We all got the bus with our beers which was very crowded, we were all enjoying ourselves at this point and ready for the night ahead. When we got to the Karaoke venue we had our own private room with a Big Screen T.V, Sofas and a sound system - all you need for hours of entertainment! We all purchaced more beverages when we got there as making a complete fool of yourself isnt easy when your sober! When we first got told about the karaoke we expected the whole night to be quite awkward, with people maybe not wanting to sing or embarress themselves. How wrong we were. As soon as the first song came on nobody could wait to get hold of the mike especially Shane and Dan from our group who were entertaining everyone with their antics - they are like laurel and hardy!

The evening was great fun, we had 2 hours of Karaoke all together. After the night was over we all got a Taxi back to our hotel. We we all very hungry as a few of us hadnt eaten allready. We looked around for places to eat but the only place which was open at that hour was the McDonalds next to our hotel. We are ashamed to say that its our 4th one of the trip so far! And Holly had a chicken burger!!!!

The next day, we woke up at 10am which was a really nice lie in for us and had to check out of our room by 12. After that we were a bit lost really and mooched around Xi'an until we had to meet our group for the 17 hour train journey to our next destination: Shanghai! Xi'an is a really nice city but there's not loads to do and we are on a budget so just wanted to lie low really and try not to spend too much as Beijing was quite expensive for us and we know that Shanghai will also be expensive too.