Xian

We could only book a soft sleeper to Xi'an which did cost more, but secretly I think we were both relieved to be facing our first 12hour train journey in comfort! Beijing west train station was HUGE! Bigger than most airports in the UK. At the station we got chatting to an Iranian couple at first and then a German girl joined us. It was a huge hall with loads of people sitting around waiting to get on their train, and we seemed to be providing the entertainment...lets stare at the westerners (although we have noticed that the Chinese are generally nosey people! They're always looking over peoples shoulders to see what they're doing)! The poor German girl got even more stares however due to her being blonde and huge titibojangles! We got chatting to an Israeli couple on the train (every nationality seems to learn English in school!) and shared our room with two Chinese guys. After a good nights sleep we arrived in Xi'an.

Our hostel was really nice, decorated authentically Chinese. We just walked round the city for our first day. We came across a pretty amazing, although incredibly hectic, Market in the Muslim quarter. Mopeds and rickshaws were trying to get down the narrow streets with market stalls on both sides and loads of people!! Something else we've noticed about china is that mopeds (mostly of which are electric) travel on the pavement beeping their horns at pedestrians, even though there is a perfectly good bit of road next to it! The food stalls in the market sold all sorts of things that were completely unrecognisable, but we did see octopus tentacles on sticks, chicken feet, pig trotters and other random meats we steered cleared of!! We did try a piece of cake on a stick (which turned out to be stodgy rice with jujube syrup - not very nice) and mutton in spices on a stick - ok. Kris was an obvious prime target for all the Market sellers as he was wearing his 'I've climbed the great wall' tshirt. They do sell all sorts of knock off things here (there wasn't much in Beijing), Northface bags and jackets and loads of tshirts. Kris did buy a Beijing Olympics tshirt!

Xi'an has a lot more hunger hatches than Beijing which made it feel more 'authentic'. We walked past some amazing looking food but had no idea how to order it. When we felt a little braver we went into one that had some seating in the back. We pointed to what we wanted and then she started chatting away in Chinese and pointing at another small menu, we thought she said something about beer so nodded. Then our food arrived and we realised that they didn't sell drinks, so we'll never know what we agreed to!! But food was only 60p each so who cares!!

We went to see the terracotta warriors on our 2nd day. We booked the trip through the hostel as you didn't save anything going yourself! As we had seen pictures they were as expected, in warehouses all lined up in their pits. The most impressive is the first warehouse, the 2nd and 3rd not so, mainly because they don't want to dig up any more warriors as the colour disappears on the terracotta within a week of hitting the air. They want to ensure they are able to preserve the colour before the dig any more up. We were also dubious when in the largest warehouse they said they had made a discovery 2 weeks ago of more soldiers, right next to the existing ones. Now, I'm not an archaeologist but hmmm...maybe I would've looked there!

That evening we went to the supermarket and found big bottles of beer for 16p! 16 pence doesn't buy you a penny sweet anymore back home so we were happy about that. Again, the beer was cheaper than water but don't worry parents, we still drink our ridiculous amount of H20!

That night we sat in the hostel bar drinking. We watched in amazement at, I'll say Americans because I can't think of another nation quite like them, eating french fries with chop sticks!! Yes that's correct. They decided that there fingers could not cope with the demands of a French fry so used chop sticks!

We played a new game called Mah-jong with a guy born in Czech, grew up in Scotland and now lives in Boston, so the accent was interesting! Even that drew a crowd and a Chinese guy couldn't help stick his oar in. Those he helped failed miserably and Kris won!

The Boston guy told us a really funny story about a guy who bought a horse in Mongolia, but you had to be there!

New day and new challenge. The challenge was the 14 km wall which surrounds the city (and protects the city from enemies! - back in the day). Emma being Emma wanted to complete the ride on a Bicycle made for 2. Yep you guessed it, as if we don't get stared at enough, we get a blue and pink coloured tandem! It was pretty fun until we reached half way and realised we had used up a lot more than half of our allowed time!! Our gentle cycle ride became a frantic peddle as we cycled away our energy to avoid a hefty fine!

We went back to the cool market and EMMA bought a Beijing Olympics tshirt (like mine!) and we bought a painting of Chinese blossom (expect that in the post folks!) before going to the station to catch our train. There is so much stuff we would have loved to buy in Xi'an but can't!

Went for a hard sleeper this time for our trip to Shanghai as it was cheaper. On seeing the carriage for the first time I thought, where do I lay an egg but it was ok! 15 rows of 3 beds one on top of the other, all in one carriage, all 'open plan' and very cosy! Being the only westerners we drank our 16p beer and played UNO, which attracted a crowd. 2 Chinese guys joined in and we ended up passing a funny few hours! When we got our 2nd beer out we got a few funny looks, one lady asked how old we were! They drink herbal tea you see.

- Observations

-Babies in China don't seem to wear nappies, instead they have slits in the front and back of their baby grows and pee and poop whenever and wherever!!
-The trains toilet 'facilities' (and most public toilets) made use of a hole in the floor and a flushing mechanism which include a bucket of water and you pouring!