As our first holiday with a length longer than a day, we were naturally all very excited to get away for a bit. And what better city than X'ian, labeled by some as China's most cultural city. Made famous for the terracotta army, it's certain that they aren't the only thing to go to X'ian for.

My first thought on X'ian on arrival was slight disappointment at how 'un-chinese' it felt to me. As a big city, even by Chinese standards, X'ian has been hit hard by the heavy westernization of China, and the curse of (or miracle of, depending on who you are) Mac Donalds and KFC was everywhere. I realized after a day however, that I was being a bit of an idiot. It wasn't China being too western, but me becoming more Chinese…When did neon-lit restaurant signs in Chinese characters become western for example? Or street vendors selling kebabs, melon and squid? Likewise, have you ever seen tuc tucs whizzing around the UK, competing with taxis, and even the motorcyclists trying to make an extra kuai or two?

But first, before I talk about our stay in X'ian itself, there's the topic of travelling there to address. From our home in Kuitun, Xinjiang, to X'ian, shaanxi province, the train journey is a hefty 40 hours. That's nearly two whole days sat on, or sleeping on, a rattling metal tube stuffed with people. That said, the sleeper trains really are an experience, and if it wasn't for catching some brutally nasty illness on the train, it would probably have even been fun. Possibly the most amazing thing about the journey is that half of it, a whole 20 hours, took place in Xinjiang province. Our city isn't even that far west and it still took that long to reach the border with Gansu. As you would imagine, even in a desert the scenery changes a fair bit in 20 hours. From the agricultural areas between Kuitun and Urumqi, to completely uninhabited desert with towering mountains maybe a hundred miles in the distance, it was all there. Sand dunes were rare along the part of desert we travelled through, but I know they exist in Xinjiang. Then again, Xinjiang is three times the size of France, so I guess a mere 20 hours over it on a train can't cover everything. Like so many things I've seen in China so far, it's the sheer scale of the desert that makes it so incredible. Travelling though a giant desert is somehow humbling. It puts into perspective just how small we are when all you can see in every direction is sand and rocks.

One of my favourite sights from the train was very early on. Out in the desert, fairly large groups of people appeared to be spreading huge amounts of chillis on the ground to dry them out. Xinjiang is famous for dates, so it could have been that instead, but the red colour was probably too intense for dates. Other views were much like what you would expect from a desert, like rock formations that simply were just impressive to look at, or the sun rising over a never-ending flat plain of sand. Modern China has left its mark on the desert too however, in the form of giant power stations and numerous unfinished roads and bridges cutting into the desert. If it weren't for the fact that they were made of concrete, some of these bridges could have been surreal structures from another time. Being battered by the sands of their surroundings, they looked much older than they were.

Yet it wasn't all desert! In the last few hours, desert gave way to towering, green mountains dotted with small settlements, and most importantly, the huanghe, or Yellow river. Having spent over a month in a desert town, this suddenly felt like the 'real' China (even if I realized a while ago there is no 'real' China as such, just the many Chinas of China). The mountains in the region approaching X'ian weren't exactly excessively high, but their steep sides gave the impression of truly towering pillars of mountains. Unfortunately, this part of the trip lasted such a short time, that that is about all there is to say about it…

That's all about the train journey, so how about X'ian? Maybe it was because it was national day, but X'ian seems to be a crazily busy city. With a population of around 7 million, it's the largest city in western China and it certainly feels that kind of size. Once we reached the outskirts of the city on the train, it took another 30 minutes or so to get to the station. Admittedly the train was moving slowly, but that still gives a sense of the size of the city. We spent our time almost exclusively in the old town, which is surrounded by traditional style city walls, dotted with very Chinese looking towers. All in all it's rather grand looking. The many western fast food shops dotted around the city however are much less grand looking, but our friends, craving something western, spent most of their meals in burger kings and the like.

We all arrived on different days, as different travelling distances and different leaving dates etc, made it tricky for us all to be there exactly at the same time. Eventually, those who could make it (only 8 of the group were able to) were all gathered happily…except we failed a bit on organizing accommodation, so we were all in different hostels/hotels. Just a learning curve for next time I guess.

As for what we did in our short few days together in X'ian, lets start off by saying that we - or the rest of the group (I was still ill from the train) - did far too much drinking. Admittedly, I joined in a little in the last few days, but really, there was way too much alcohol. It did lead to meeting some pretty cool people, like some really friendly off-duty policemen, a 16 year old preparing to go to Eton for a year and a man from Pakistan who had set up a karaoke bar in the city. Of course, every time you meet new people in China, as long as they aren't waiguoren (foreigners), you have a chance to practice some Chinese. I realized while in X'ian, that my troubles with understanding people Xinjiang is mainly down to the accent. In X'ian, for once I could genuinely talk to people in Chinese, which was awesome. Admittedly, I only understood fairly simple things, but a conversation is a conversation nonetheless.

The main sight of X'ian is arguably the bell tower right in the centre of the old city. Others may say the big goose pagoda, which is a little out of the old town…plus we didn't actually see it, so we can't comment on it. The bell tower acts as the most epic roundabout decoration in history, as traffic whizzes all around it. If you want to enter it (which we didn't - too much money), you have to take an underpass underneath the roundabout. Quick fun fact about China. In China, the motor vehicle is king. The general rule seems to be 'screw the pedestrians, they don't have a car'. I'll have to talk about the odd driving rules later on…

My favourite part of the town was without a doubt the Muslim district. The narrowest streets you could imagine are crowded with people, stalls selling amazing food and spices, and bikes try and push their way through an impossible wall of people. It's madness basically, and so the atmosphere is amazing. Two other volunteers and I did however have a pretty nasty meal there when I ordered something due to seeing the character for 'lamb'…and it turned out to be a soup of every bit of lamb you wouldn't want to eat. With chicken, every bit, even the head, is amazing. Apparently with Lamb, some organs taste a bit foul.

Of course a trip to X'ian is not complete without a visit to the famous terracotta army, and so six out of eight of us parted with 290 yuan each (quite a lot considering our pay as volunteers) to see the renowned sight. The army is well out of town, perhaps over an hour by coach, but that certainly doesn't stop the visitors from flooding there. Never have I seen crowds like those for the terracotta army. Never even anything close to it. I wouldn't have been surprised if there were up to a hundred thousand people there. It genuinely felt like a city of people had crammed onto the grounds of the museum. Luckily, if you could deal with the crowds - I only just could - the army is certainly worth seeing. Each and every warrior looks different, with its own characterists. Some are towering powerhouse-looking soldiers. Others looks as if they have drunk a little bit too much and gained a few too many pounds. Some look calm, others wear scowls on their faces. The detail is what makes these terracotta figures. The museum attached to the digsites could have done with a bit of work however, so it's good that the museum isn't the main attraction!

As well as the drinking I mentioned earlier, we did visit some Chinese club that turned out to be amazing. Despite not drinking much… I may have had a dance-off with some crazy Kazakh guy who danced a style called tectonic. If you don't know the dance style, look it up. It's kind of cool as far as dance music dance styles go. Chinese clubs seem to be mad in comparison to our UK ones. There are always people dancing, and the Chinese really go for it. The clubs also regularly bring up entertainment on stage, the most common being semi-traditional Chinese dancing. Luckily, there was nothing dodgy for the stage entertainment. Our local club, which we visited for teachers day, was another story…but that can be left for another blog.

Coming to the end of today's blog now I think, but I should mention the return journey briefly. Instead of sleepers, we were forced to take hard seats on the way back. There were no sleeper tickets left, so we had the challenge of 40 hours without sleep. It wasn't fun, and I'll leave the hard seat trains at that.

So that's X'ian wrapped up fairly quickly. There should now also be some photos of the trip uploaded, and I'm attempting to put some videos up later.