The day after the Great Wall trek we headed straight back to Beijing and caught the night train to Xian - a 13 hr train ride! We arrived here yesterday and checked into hostel, then headed out to the Muslim quarter to go shopping. That's when the earthquake started. Was quite scary when it happened - we were shopping at an outdoor market when the ground started shacking, all the locals just started running out of the market and we didn't realise at first what it was and then one of locals started yelling at us to run, so we just followed them out! It was more worrying as they were all panicking (1st quake they've had in 4 years). Eventually all settled down and we carried on shopping. When we got back to hotel we weren't allowed in, as they have to wait for the government to give permission. Eventually we found a restaurant open and we were allowed back in after dinner. Then I was woken up at 4am this morning to someone banging on my door and yelling in Chinese! (I have a room on my own as I'm the only single girl on the tour). I quickly throw some clothes on and ran outside, where I met the others who said there had been another quake - I must have slept through it :-). Weren't allowed back in hotel till after 7!! We went to see the Terra-cotta Warriors today they were amazing! We then cycled round the Xian city wall which was good fun, bikes were very basic. One of the bikes lost a pedal near the end and Mike had to pedal back one legged!! Was also good practise for the big ride later in the trip, seeing as that was the first time on a bike in years.