This was meant to be posted 5 days ago, but as offexploring is the worst blog website since time began, it hasn't let me post it. Hopefully I will have some luck this time!

Moving on from Zhangye, Xi'an was the natural next stop. Despite being there over national day 3 months ago, We had no plan on missing this lovely city out of the spring festival travels.

Like Zhangye, I'll be honest, we didn't do that much. We definitely saw more of the evenings than the day time...but then we were using our time in Xi'an to celebrate the start of our travelling.

We spent the day-time (in which we actually were awake) wondering around town mainly. Luckily the whole city just has a great atmosphere, so we kept on stumbling on interesting things. We found a market that we somehow missed last time for example. I don't know how we missed it, as it was fantastic. So much so that I actually bought something for once - a Dizi, or Chinese flute! Other discoveries included Stephen's uncovering of a particularly magical liquor (for some - not me). Irn Bru. On sale in China.

I also got to see the girls in Gansu for the first time in 4 months, which was wonderful. They only arrived on our last day there, but they will be joining us again later.

The fantastic thing about travelling to such places, even if you end up diong very few cultural things, is getting to meet amazing people. In the hostel we stayed in, we met numerous Germans to practice german with. That's always convenient when 3 out of 5 of the vols staying in Xi'an spoke German! On top of that, we met a Canadian and Polish couple who had done some serious travelling before they started teaching for a couple of years in China. The Canadian had come to China via russia and Mongolia and described some pretty crazy stories of how he got across those countries. We had a chat with an ozzy microbiologist about all sorts of bits and pieces about China, and talked to about an israeli on his views about Israel and Palestine. Lovely.

Anywho, we are now in Beijing, and have met up with a few more volunteers. Having left the girls in Xi'an, the vol count is now up to 6. By Shanghai there will be all 16 of us!

And on a final note, Marcus tells me that an American may have read my blogs on Kuitun's wonderful barman Jasper, and been so impressed that he visited. If my blog is indeed the one that led you to jasper, I'm glad my blog has been of service! Feel free to leave a message about your no doubt fantastic night.

Until next time readers!