Ok I know the terracotta warriors are in Xi'an and this blog says Chengdu but its midnight here and we've only been here for just over an hour so there aren't any photos yet.

So to recap on the last three days;

We went to visit the terracotta warriors - it was awesome. The most amazing things we've seen so far (probably). To see the thousands (probably) of warriors lined up in pit one and the thousands more broken on the floor waiting to be reasembled is mind blowing. We went on Sunday - one of the busier days but it was still easy enough to get in and the place is so big you don't mind the crowds. If you do nothing else in China do this! As well as the rows and rows of warriors in pit one there are two other pits with a secondary smaller force and the command generals pit. In the museum they have some figures from other pits found nearby e.g. acrobats, exotic birds, stable boys. These pits aren't visible to the public yet but some of the figures are and there are plans to open them in the near future.

Despite being told there was no bus from our hostel and that it was either a tour or go back to the centre of town and then out; we trusted google and got on the 307 which left about 500 metres from our hostel. It took about 90 minutes to get there but we had a seat so we didn't mind.

We must have been in the museum for a good four hours and probably could have been there longer but tiredness got the better of us. So we boarded the bus back to the hostel in time for our live uplink to B on the hill (for those not in the know - Blue bell hills biggest music festival!)

The uplink was sketchy at best and we got about 15 minutes of Jims time before we decided to call it quits and go get some food. (By now it was 8pm our time 1pm in the UK). Behind our hostel there was a street cafe which had been taunting me for days with the nice smells so we braved it. They spoke no english, we no chinese and there was no pictures on their menus - rubbish. So I went back to the hostel and got the lady on recption to come and be my translator. It was quite funny and in the end we got bbq chicken wings, meat on a stick and some noodles, and four beers. It was not bad and for less than a fiver - very good.

After braving the back street bbq we went back to our live link up. Claire persisted for four hours and got maybe 20 minutes of footage - most of which she couldn't reply to. So it was more than a bit despondant we went to bed that night.

The next day was spent trying to beat China - but we should have realised no one can beat China. We tried proxy sites, paying for Fring services, everything - but the combination of this laptop using android and not having a phone number and China not liking most chat rooms and social network sites made this a pain in the arse!!!

Luckily the holliman clan and team B came through - so on the quieter Monday evening we had about an hours chat with people about what had happened the day before - Zola (what a mess).

If anyone else wants to get on fring (its free) we are here as "TeamP". We are normally free about 11pm-12midnight (4pm-5pm UK).

Finally today we had to get up at 4:30am to board a train to Chengdu - on a plus side we got a bed each which was better than we expected as we thought we only had a chair. Quick end to the story as it is 1am now - we got here ok, had a cab ride from the station to the hostel, got settled in ok and went for a firey dinner (unintentional) only time will tell if my bottom will thank me for this.

Team P