Hi,
I haven't been able to get on here for long enough to update my blog but I have a spare hour now so here it comes....

On Tuesday we went to see the terracotta army. I was really excited because the great wall and the army are the 2 reasons that I wanted to come to China. We hired a local guide to come with us and explain hat we were looking at. He didn't actually teach us anything though because he had such a strong chinese accent when he spoke English that we had no idea what he was saying!
First we went to a shop where they showed us how they made the army and then they started their sales pitch at trying to sell us replicas. Then we went to see the real deal. The first pit is the largest and still had many of the army in tact. The pit was huge and filled with rows and rows of soldiers, horses and the remains of wooden carriages. It was really impressive.

The other 2 pits were much smaller and not as impressive. The pits were first found by a farmer in 1974 and he is at the museum everyday to sign books for tourist, its turned him into a big celebrity!

Outisde the museum there was loads of stalls selling fur from dogs, it was really horrible. Theother night we went out for dinner and the group all tried dog, I was really pissed off with them. I was the only one out of 14 people who didn't try it and they all found it really funny to wind me up but I wasn't very impressed!

After the terracotta army we all went for a meal atan Italian restuarant that I had found the night before. Everyone was sick of eating Chinese food for every dinner so we treated ourselves to some pasta, it was amazing. Me and Elidh bought some 'I love China' tshirts the night before so we got drunk and decided to wear them out for a night on the town! After dinner we went to an amazing club called one plus one, I havenever seen anything like it. It was about 6 floors, with little gardens and rivers, then bridges over the dance flor. We were all really impressed.

Wednesday - We were hungover all day and so treated ourselves to another starbucks which was very bad of us! Then we bumped into 2 girls off our tour so we decided to try and be cultural andgo to a museum about Chinese history but it was absolutley rubbish and none of the English translations made any sense!
After that we went to have a look atthe muslim quarter which was loads of really cute little tree lined streets but it was so hot and e ere knackered so we didn't really want to walk around!

That eveing we got a 17 hour hour train to Shanghai. It was an ok journey but we had 6 bunks in each room so we were really squahed in. Luckily I wasn't on the top otherwise I would never have been able to climb back down again!

Thursday - we arrived and checked into our hotel then we went for a walk along the bund which is the area of all the skyscrapes along the river. It is really cool around that part of Shanghai and it looks nothing like China, it could easily be London. That night we went on a cruise down the river to see all the buildings lit up. It was a brilliant way to see the city at night.Afterwards we went to a bar near our hotel and had a few drinks and played pool. It was a really good night.

Friday - we went to see the Shanghai acrobats who were absolutley amazing! All the acts were brilliant but the last one was so scary that I had to keep covering my eyes. There was a huge metal ball and a guy went in it on a motorbike and started riding around in it and going 360 degrees so he was totally upside down, it was horrible. Then another man went in and they started doing tricks, by the end of it there was 5 motorbikes in there going upside down and they were all about 5 inches away from each other, it was a silly trick to do I thought!

Saturday - we left Shanghai on Saturday but before we left weall went for a walk to see this famous park and on the way there someone stole my camera. I was so angry with them because I lost most of mypictures. Luckily I had made a cd after the terracotta army so I had all my beijing and great wall pics but I lost tons of brilliant ones from after that. I had to go to the police station in a police car with my tour leader and fill out tons of forms which I didn't understand. It was pretty intimidating even though I hadn't done anything wrong! As soon as we got back to the hotel we had to leave on a 23hour train to Yangshuo.

Thats where we are now and its a lovely little town surrounding my limestone mountains. It really reminds me of Thailand here because it si basically a town for tourists and there are tons of bars and places to eat western food so we were all really excited.

Monday - we went on a bamboo raft down the river for 2 hours looking at all the mountians, it was really beautiful and looked a lot like Phi Phi island in Thailand. I think I have been travelling for too long now because everyone else is amazed by things and I've always seen the same thing but better elsewhere.

Thats my update for the last week. It is Tuesday now and we are leaving Yangshuo later on today with a stop off at a cookery school on the eay which should be fun. I think we have 2 nights in a really basic guesthouse in the mountains and we are supposed to be trekking (!!) and have a full day bike ride so hopefully the sun will leave us alone for a few days! I'll be arriving in Hong Kong on Sunday and then the tour is over, its gone really quickly but we are all staying in HK for a few extra days so we have about another week and a half together.

I hope the English weather is treating you kindly xxx