Hello,

Got a few days to catch up on! It is now Wednesday evening here and I have arrived in Xi'an (or Siam as it is said). On Monday we went to the Great Wall, a section which is 3 hours drive from Beijing. After the wall, we went to a local guesthouse which was nice and had dinner by a lake overlooking gorgeous views of the wall - I have some great pictures but again, I can't upload them on this pc!

Yesterday was unfortunately lost to travelling, we spent 4 hours on the bus travelling back to Beijing train station then we boarded a sleeper train for a 13 hour overnight journey to Xi'an. The train wasn't that uncomfortable but a little cramped! There were 6 beds per section, facing each other so a top, a middle and a bottom bunk on each side - i was on the bottom luckily so wasn't too high - although my time on the top may come as we have a few more train journeys to come!! Anyway, the train was delayed by 5 hours!!! (and we think british rail are bad!) So we only got to Xi'an at about 12 noon today (wednesday).

Once we arrived we had lunch and then a tour of the city - it is nice, much smaller than Beijing but it doesn't feel as overcrowed. I think I quite like it! We looked at some of the sites which we will explore more in detail later and then went to the Muslim area of the city where there are lots of street stalls and lovely buildings. We had a look at the market where there were lots of silk, jade and wooden carvings on offer. I didn't buy anything don't worry!!

This evening we are going for dinner and then it's another early night for me as we have to be up at 7 tommorow to go on a tour to see the terracotta warriers.

I am feeling quite tired today, i didn't sleep to well on the train and I think all the moving about it catching up with me - i don't feel like i've stoppped since i left the UK plus i've lost 8 hours in the process! Plus, I left my travel bear on the train which made me quite sad!!!

Anyway, I hope you are all still well - I will try and find a way to upload my photo's soon!

Tash xx