I think today in Xi'an was probably the most British weather I've encountered since my soggy day walking to Lukla all those weeks back. We got in at about 9:30am following another successful night train for me. Several others had the same problems as before, and I was universally resented once more. This train took a lot longer than last time so we decided to pass the time by drinking, of course. The guards did their best to shut us up, including tactics like clapping and shushing us. Bless them. That'll teach them to put us all in the same coach overnight. The taxi took us to the wrong hotel after we queued for a decade...
We had lunch in a stupidly cheap restaurant - 10 yuan (about a quid) for a plate of chilli rice, kebabs and plum juice. Now we're talking. We wandered the market streets and checked out the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower from the outside - admission prices in China are annoyingly high for my budget. The weather was miserable so I followed the others to Starbucks and watched them drink coffee. I was having a cheap day!
That night we went out for local hotpot, which is where the customers have their own boiling sauce to cook their own food in. That was a lot of fun but generally stressful as we had no idea what to cook when, and how to cook it. Thankfully Leon helped us out. It was good fun, but don't bother going if you're a vegetarian.
We then treated ourselves to some beer at the local youth hostel bar. Max, Angela and I were there until midnight when the underpass closed and it took us 20 more minutes to cross the road back to the hotel which was only 5 minutes walk away. Gah...
Now, what do you do when you make a major archaeological discovery of a huge area that will take decades to excavate? Maybe excavate a full site and open it carefully to the public? No. How about you just whack a load of buildings on top of where you think the interesting sites are, open it to the public and carry on digging later? That's was China did. And to be fair, it's working pretty well. Yes, day two was when the bus picked us up to see the terracotta warriors. I loved it and could have spent a good two or three hours more there. I also got to play with my gorillapod for the first time, which was nice. If you don't know what that is, look it up.
We returned, ordered some more rice (semi successfully) in the place we had lunch the day before, then set off to walk the city wall of Xi'an. The sun was setting and we'd paid a lot to get up there, so we carried on in the night and saw parts of the wall lit up. Pippa, Helen, Max and I walked halfway round - about 5 miles - and nearly got locked in or killed getting out of the wall and crossing the five lane traffic in the dark.
We'd missed the group outing for dumplings in the evening, and to be honest I was glad. I wasn't that hungry and the price for the meal turned out to be relatively high. Instead we looked around the market, which was lit up and full of outdoor stalls. I indulged in a green tea cake, flatbread, some kind of fish and skewered chicken for a mere 11 yuan. Then I had some bean cake. Right, imagine tinned mushy peas, except bright orange and more bitter, then mix it with small lumps of bland jam or apricot. That's bean cake. I had to wash it down with a McDonald's ice cream cone!
Finally, we ended the night in the youth hostel bar where we took random photos with the terracotta warriors body, including a great photo of Helen with half a head. That attracted attention from other Chinese folks who took photos of us (I'm used to this by now). Pippa was proposed to in Russian and English by someone who tried to start a fight for a stray pool ball smashing one of our bottles. His friend also had a disagreement with a drunken Aussie about directions to a disco(?), which also ended in a near fight. Bit of a sausage fest in the end. Apparently I made it worse by sitting on my own seat that a Chinese bloke was sat on for a while. Anyway, it was entirely different to our experience the night before!
Max went on to a club or two after. I was knackered and went back. We'd learnt our lesson and just crossed the main road instead of the ridiculous 20 minute detour. We then made the mistake of asking if the hotel shop was open, and five minutes later it was, as all the staff hammered on the food to wake the shop owner. Oops. Pippa felt guilty and bought all the cans of beer available and we drank some more. I got to sleep around 2-3am. Bus at 7:30am next day. That would be challenging.