Hello all,

Wow, it feels like a long time since we've done anything on here, were so busy in China so lots of catching up to do now.

After our journey from Chengdu, with the Chinese man who had a thing for keeping the cabin door open, we arrived in Xi'an at a decent hour and got collected from the train station by the hostel that we had booked with. It was really strange turning up somewhere, with somebody waiting for you... he even had a name card that he was holding up, proper VIP service! After a short journey to the other side of town, we arrived at a lovely Ming dynasty building, which had been converted into a hostel. The rooms were really nice, and although a little bit more expensive than the other places we've stayed around Asia, you really do get what you pay for!

On our first day, we didn't do a great deal. We ate some food, got to know the local area, and just generally had a stroll around the town. We've got a bit of a routine going now for when we first arrive somewhere... first we sit down for an hour or so, have a bit of a wash, eat in the first place we stumble across, and then just mong out for the rest of the day. Its strange to look back at all the energy we had at the beginning of the trip, where we would try and cram so many things into one day, rushing around everywhere constantly... now it seems more like normal life, and we've settled into a much slower pace!

Anyway, after our obligitary lazy day, we got up fairly early and headed out for a day of sight-seeing inside the walls of Xi'an. Xi'an was once a stop on the silk route that travelled from east to west across China, before continuing across much central Asia, so it goes without saying that its got alot of history, and is quite unique in many ways. Its surrounded by a massive old wall with watchtowers on the corners, and there are alot of old buildings dotted around inbetween the bustling streets of traffic. We had a walk around the muslim quarter. It was so amazing seeing chinese muslims with the head scarfs etc and white skull caps. All the food looked incredible. People cooking fresh breads and kebabs (all halal) and massive baskets of nuts and dried fruits. It was all down tiny little streets and alleyways, it was almost like being back in muslim Malaysia but in a more chinesey lol. Later on we were strolling back home, under the subway to cross the road and as we were walking up the stairs we had a shock. Ben felt a tug on the backpack and turned around... a guy had gotten our bag un-zipped and was trying to pick-pocket (or pick-bag) us!! As soon as this guy realised we had noticed he pretended to 'trip over' and walked off. I ran after him while Nina checked if anything was missing. I caught up with him, and it was obvious he hadn't taken anything... he was obviously very sheepish and not aggresive at all. The saddest thing was that he probably just needed some money for a meal, and under other circumstances I would have liked to have helped him in some way.

Anyway, that evening we had some great food. The first really good meal that we had eaten in China, which was pretty shocking, considering we had spent almost 3 weeks in the country by this point. Up until then we had been surviving on pot-noodles and McDonalds (Cheap cheap)... so we were well impressed to eat something actually Chinese.

The next day, we got up really early, and caught the bus to the TERRACOTTA ARMY!! We were both really excited, Nina more-so than me as she had been wanting to go and see them since her Nan got her interested when she was very young. We arrived, bought our tickets, and then started a hot walk up to the site, which is still an active archeological sight today, over 30 years after it was first discovered. There are 3 main pits and we started with the largest. We tried to go backwards doing the smallest first but couldnt work it out lol. When we got in there it took a minute to get past the crowds and when we saw them we were so amazed! The pit was abolutely huge and full of row upon row of perfectly preserved warriors. We stayed in the first pit for about an hour, snapping photo's and just staring at them. Its amazing to think they were made by hand 2,200 years ago and each face is completely unique. Stunning really. The scale of it was immense. At the back there was a workstation set out where excavations were still taking place. We tried to have a peak and saw a head sticking out of the ground lol. There was also a collection of warriors that had been damaged or broken into pieces and they were sticking them back together, it was really quite impressive to see the process, and it would quite clearly take alot of patience, and passion as some of the warriors were totally shattered. They even had horses, full-scale and they really looked like real life horses.

We then went into the next pit. This one was a lot smaller and was the chariot house. There was a big slope leading into it where they would have wheeled in the chariots and lots of warriors standing around on guard. The next pit was pretty cool. It hadn't been excavated properly and still had the roof of the tomb in tact. You could see the big wooden beams balanced over corridors where the warriors were. They would then stack lots of reed mats and clay to water-proof it. Then they were buried under mountains of soil. Incredible for the time really. After that there was a little museum which showed some of the better preserved warriors. Some even had paint still on them, and we also saw some bronze charriots. It was such an amazing day!

The next day we headed out of the walled part of town towards a really old Taoist temple. It took us a while to find as it was down this tiny little street. We were finally seeing parts of town where most people lived and it was quite a shock. It was obvious that if you lived outside the walls you were alot poorer! The temple however, was stunning. It was very low, only one story high but had lots of buildings in the grounds. It was all very beautiful and at the back there was this amazing garden. It was so peacefull, full of flowers and trees and bugs, we sat there for ages. Amazing to be in such a big city but as soon as you stepped into this garden you couldnt hear any of the background noise at all. As we were walking through, we even saw a very traditional looking chinese man, complete with scraggly white beard, and hair tied up in a bun. He may have been a taoist monk, but I guess we'll never know. Its strange how its the little things that stand out, but for us, that definately summed up what we expected of China, walking down city street wathcing old men gathered playing mahjong, and temples filled with locals and very few tourists.

That evening, we had a 1000km journey to Beijing, and arrived at the station rather early. We had seen the crowds gathered outside the previous day when we were catching a bus to the Terracotta warriors, and thought it might take some time to actually get into the station. As it happened, it was all fairly straight-foward, and the area outside the station was either what the Chinese consider a good place for a gathering, or perhaps more likely people coming from far and wide and then having a long wait for available tickets... or even just their train. Our train was super posh. The beds were slightly bigger and the toilets were clean and didn't smell gross. We even had individual tv's at the end of each bed (no english channels of course). It was well nice.

Anywayz, shall write about Beijing soon and will upload pix asap.

Much love to all and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!!! (Hel)

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