Tour we never finished and the Terracotta soldiers

It's morning and I just had my biggest and sweetest pomegranite ever. I bought three for 1 euro, fist sized. For one small one I pay in Finland for couple of euros. I really enjoyed my pomme cause in Finland I never get it so tasty. Delicious!!!

We didn't expect our tour to end up in the way it did. The bus being 45 minutes delayed gave us time to get to know Amanda and Joe from USA. When the mid sized tour bus finally arrived we noticed it to be full of Chinese. Weird we thought but well, at least we had our own tour guide. He told us to pay the ticket prices in advance and told us the prices (student or full).

After being on the tour for a couple of hours we started wondering if it was a scam. The thing that made us suspicious happened at the Qin Emperor's mausoleum. (Terracotta soldiers guard his tomb). We had a small shuttle bus tour around the mausoleum but we didn't get almost any time to walk free or see the nice, beautiful gardens that were around the mausoleum itself. But after we left we did have time to stop at a shop fo the Chinese to buy dried fruit. We also had had time to stop at jade shop and another shight for Chinese (while we waiting at the parking lot) which were not included in our tour.

We started claiming and asking for explanations. We were told that cause we were only four (not five) foreigners we needed to wait - but that's not what we were told before hand, those we not the condicions the day before when booking the tour via hostel. (It was not hostel's tour but they helped us with the booking).

On the way to Terracotta we really started getting upset and the tour guide just trying to explain (which was all bulls***). After arguing for quite many tens of minutes we got our money back but he still wanted some extra charges. We sticked together and already being at the Terracotta area in a reastaurant we decided not to continue with them but on our own. We were shouting in the restaurant and finally we all payed different price from my 10 euros to Joe's 20 euros. What a noon, what an experience! After he left us we all could sigh and try to take it relaxed. But the adrenaline "pulse" was like after doing sports.

We enjoyed the Terracotta army for 2 hours (woth the guide it might ahve been a half an hour tour). It's an amazing sight! It's a place where you again have to imagine how the people constructed it all, and what was the price to pay to complete the work. And the work that the people do nowadays is also incredible. They put all the pieces together to build the army again. We saw men working in the pit no3 and they did their work easily and carefully.

Did you know that Chinese used to use mercury as medicine? They tought it prolongs their life but vice versily they died vey young.

If you ever visit Xi'an I recommed Bob's Guesthouse. English spoken by the staff is good. They are cooperative and help you with any problem you have. It's situated 600 metres from the train station and bus station. Room are clean, you get hot water and it's calm at night time even though at day time there is a lot of traffic. The rates are cheap!

We'll head to Xi'an city centre now. In the afternoon we'll take the train to Shanghai - it takes 20 hours. Will be another new experince in my life.

Erika

p.s. Kristof, you remember Kristiina and Steven from Gent, from Suomi-klubi? They had a baby boy, Willem is his name. They invited everybody for a 'gathering' but I suppose we're not going :-)