Well it is officially freezing today in Xi'an so we wrapped up as warm as we could and met Robyn and Sarah to get the bus out to Bingmayong and see the Army of Terracotta Warriors. The nice thing about coming to China in Winter is that the tourist attractions are very quiet and you can almost have the place to yourselves. The not so nice thing is the temperature and as many of the sights are outside you have to endure the numb fingers and toes. The Terracotta Warriors were definitely worth the freezing temperatures. It was quite weird to be seeing them in front of us as it was one of those things that you had only ever seen in pictures before now. They were so well preserved even though they were over 2000 years old and the photos we took just don't do them justice. It was just amazing to think that they had been buried in this enormous series of vaults and the work that must have gone into making them beforehand. All the figures have individual facial features and they are all poised either on guard or ready for battle. Apparently there are thought to be loads more buried and excavation could go on for decades which is even more incredible. To warm ourselves up (it had started snowing by now) we headed for the tea house and watched the very polite Chinese lady perform a tea ceremony for us. I was really impressed with this....Steve surprisingly didn't think too much of it! We all had to perform a little ritual of drinking our tea whilst she explained the significance. 7 cups of tea later we had to politely ask her to stop pouring! On our way to the bus stop we were met by a sea of hawkers trying to sell us a mini army of terracotta warriors and gold chariots within a plastic case!!!! Their sales pitch involved "I love you" and "kiss me" and "ooh baby" regardless if you were male or female! We headed back to Xi'an through the snow and spent the evening in a bar called The Music Man. We were treated to a live band and a series of Chinese and English popular music. It was a great night and quite amusing to hear Coldplay and Radiohead songs sung in Chenglish! The Chinese people here were the liveliest we have seen and pulled us up to dance - we were no match however for their Justin Timberlake dance moves! We left the bar to find the city covered in a blanket of fresh snow which was really pretty under the twinkling lights. We were joined by the lead singer of the band who was travelling home the same way on his bicycle....very rock and roll! The following day after having some amazing pork dumplings we headed for the Muslim Quarter for some shopping. Being out of season we were able to get some great stuff for a good price. The snow was coming down thick and fast and we indulged our immature natures by having a brief snowball fight. After scoffing some pasta back at the hostel we joined the hundreds of people in the queue to get into the train station and make our way to Beijing.