Arrived in Xi'an on the morning of the 29th. Thank you Tom for putting us in touch with Jessie and her parents, who were extremely generous and made our stay in Xi'an very enjoyable.

Jessie's dad picked us up from the station and took us for our first real Chinese breakfast. It was in the kind of restaurant that we have walked past many times but not had the guts to go in!! He orderd for us, so we weren't sure what we were getting. When it came, it was a bowl of hot watery, sweet milk, with some doughy pastry sticks, if they had been covered in sugar they would have been like yum yums, so not all that bad! We looked around to see most locals eating a brown soup, which we thought we had got away with until it was plonked down in front of us. Shula started to cringe, so it was down to me to get stuck in! It had the consistency of gravy when it's left to conjeal (not sure how you spell that!) It did taste quite meaty and I relaised that if you dunked in the pastry, it was a bit like left over yorkshire pudding in your gravy, mmm nice! To top it off we were then served a couple of boiled eggs cooked in Chinese spice, once again Shula wimped out, so I had two boiled eggs and a very dry mouth!!

We then went straight to the Terra-Cotta Army, whic was brillant. We have loads of pictures to bore you with, still no joy getting them loaded!

It was then time for lunch, this time local specialities, which included a plate full of cows tongue, which if you closed your eyes tasted like tender beef, but if you opened them it definitely looked like tongue!!

Day 2 we spent with a neighbour Mary, who had just finished a degree in English. We toured some more sights untill lunch when we headed to a dumpling restaurant where Jessie's dad had ordered us a 20 course lunch, each course a different set of dumplings! (We have pictures of every course)

We are both now 45 stone and will have to get electric buggies to tour the rest of the world!!

We're now back in Beijing and the food tour doesn't stop, so we're off out to see how much duck we can eat in one sitting!!

Lots of love,

The two tonne Tollands!

P.S - We have managed to avoid the snow, but it does mean that we will have to fly to Hong Kong as the trains are not running.