Hoorah, we are out of Xi'an and out of the smog. It's amazing where 16 hours on a train goes when you are playing the amazing 'backpacker' card game with your friends (Thanks Mandy they are a hit!!) and drinking more giant bottles of pi jiu (beer). With so much time to spare brainwaves occur and we realised that STA are so rubbish - the single entry visa they sold us for China is infact useless seeing as we need to re-enter China to get to Hanoi after Hong Kong. So a quick change of plan and route is required. We are now flying to Thailand after Hong Kong, rather than a train to Vietnam. (Mum's; it's all booked, we are sorted, no need to panic! We know what we are doing, well almost..)

After sleeping the stress of the train off we went to learn how to cook a 5 course szechuan feast, including, Kung Po Chicken, Fish flavoured eggplant and dumplings. We ate it and lived to tell the tale, bet you can't wait for us to come home and experiment on you! To wash it down we headed to the hip and trendy Jingli Street for a few bevvies. Suddenly hunger struck us again and we opted to try the regions speciality 'hot pot'. A big vat of boiling stock/soup is in the middle of the table for you to throw raw food into, wait a few minutes and enjoy. Unfortunately for Sharon she opted for the veggie bowl which she found out at the end, had mussels in all along, yum her favourite. Not !!

Panda's - again too many facts for us to put on our blog, if you want to know more let us know! The highlight for both of us were the month old panda babies some in their incubators. others in their play pens with their friends dreaming (we could tell cos they were shaking and kicking out - Sharon thinks they were trying to be Kung Fu panda in their sleep) . Unfortunately we couldn't get any pictures as the 'no photos' police were there but we got a few of the bigger ones for your enjoyment.

That afternoon (a jam packed day) we went to Leshan to visit the giant buddha. Basically a buddha carved into the mountain face put there to calm waters where 3 rivers join. There would have been a great photo opportunity had our dozy tour leader been doing her job properly. From the other side of the river you can see a giant buddha lying down, you can make out his head and feet and there is even a strategically placed pagoda pointing up to the sky! Carrie thinks that the stone carved buddha looks like Elvis and was half expecting him to break into song.

Off to our first Monastery now and Sharon is scared! xx