Hello!!

I've finally put all my photo's so far on - although it has taken me hours so make sure you have a look!! The Summer Palace album is a bit unclear as i didn't chose a high enough resoution to upload them or something!!!

Had a great day yesterday (which I think was helped by the fact that I went for a power nap in the afternoon!) In the morning we went by coach to the site where the terracotta warriers were found (it was bout 1 hours journey from where we are staying). It was an amazing site to see and one of my favourite things so far. Each of the warriers are lifesize and every single one has it's own face and inidivudal features. Our guide told us that it had taken over 4 decades for the emperors tomb to be completed and i can understand why!!

We saw 3 pits in total each with different types of warriers - in the first tomb only about 1000 of the warriers have been excavated and the rest of the pit is still to be dug out - this is because they are waiting for new tecnology which will help them to preserve the colour of the warriers when they are exposed to the air. I didn't realise but most of the warriers were in pieces when they were discovered because there had been a peasant uprising just after the death of the emperor in which his tomb had been burnt. Our guide was telling us that it takes one archeologist 3 months to put together just one of the warriers - I have some pictures of a few that are being put together at the minute and you can see what hard work it must be.

We also got to see the farmer who discovered the site when he was trying to build a well in 1972 - he now signs books for a living at the museum!

The site is vast and I was amazed to learn that the site in which the warriers were found is estimated to be just 3% of the total burial site, it is thought that there is a mercury lake enclosed in the centre of the tomb but at this time it is too dangerous to expose this as there is a danger that it would harm the farm land surrounding the site. When we got to the gates we were told that we would be seeing the eigth wonder of the world and they were'nt kidding! The place was amazing and I've already decided that I'm going to come back in about 50 years time to see what other teasures have been discovered!

I then went for a little nap in the afternoon which was a good job as we had a jampacked evening ahead. We met at 6 to go to the Muslim area of the city where we tried some of the local street food. I had this snack which reminded of the pouri's ma makes! I saw the woman make and she put a piece of dough down then added some spicy veg to the middle put water around the edge and then added another layer of dough to the top - then she fried it - it was like a cross between a pouri and a curry pie!! It was really good!

We then when to a tea cermony in an old house in the city - we got to try about 6 different types of tea, were taught how to make them and told all about thier added health benefits - I really enjoyed it - the woman who was conducting proceedings also had an upside down teapot which was pretty amazing!!

We finished the evening off with some karaoke!! Our trip leader brought along some friends and we went to thier local place. It was really good - you enter the building and you walk straight into a supermarket where you can purchase drinks, crisps, popcorn and alcohol as there is no bar - you are then shown to your own personal karaoke room which you hire by the hour (we ended up staying for about 4!). It was brilliant - everyone sang along together and we all did the macarena!!! It was much better than having to sing infront of loads of random people, plus no one did solo performances - it was all about who could sing the loudest!!

I will be travelling to Shanghai this evening so have another 18 hour train journey to look forward to!!

I hope everything is well at home and I haven't missed anything too exciting!

Speak soon xxx