Yey we have successfully moved city we are now in Xi'an. was bit of an odd experience getting to Xi'an it was a 12hour train from Beijing and we took the overnight sleeper train which is basically 6 bunkbeds in sets of 3 crammed into the smallest compartment ever. Well wierd, luckily train numbers and platforms in english, sleeper train is exactly as it sounds u get a bunk bed on a train and just get to chill out and sleep, by far the best way to travel as just get on train at about 9pm and just sleep and when wake up don't even realise u have done a 12 hour journey!!! Bit wierd tho, especially hard as we were on the cheapest topbunk and its hard trying to climb down from the top bunk, little steps to climb down but the chinese dude on the bottom bed had put the bottom step away so kinda had to step on the edge of his bed to get down and his way of telling me off to transcend language barriers was for him to slap away my leg,i got slapped on the leg by a strange chinese dude and he thought that was PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE- WELL IT WASN'T!!!!! Shouted at him in enunciated english like he can understand me if pronounce my words correctly!!! What an absolute k**bhead!! O well apart from that mishap train journey was ok as just slept, hostel picked us up from train station tho which was good then headed straight out on a terracotta warriers tour.
firstly headed to the Banpo Village ruins which is a 6000 year old village ruins, tour guide explained the significance of how the houses wer built and how all burial sites faced west towards setting sun so souls could go with the last rays of the sun, really nice and symbolic. After that went to the terracotta warrier museum wer they showed us how the army were built and they made replicas and then after that we got to see the terracotta warriers. they wer built like 2200 years ago by the emperor to protect the city and so he had something to rule over in heaven as believed cud take pottery to heaven, was amazing, thousands of these artificial soldiers!!!!
Our first evening in Xi'an we met up with some other travellers, an english bloke, an irish and german guy and 2 swedish girls, really nice and had a few beers with them (yes i am an official beer drinker now as its cheep and easy to find) then headed to a fountain show which is basically a light and fountain show in the main square, on every night for free and right in front o an old lit up temple so its amazing, really good, rushed back to hostel as get a free beer from 8-10pm (proper backpacker now running for free beer), stayed up a few hours then headed for my bed. today just had an explore of Xi'an, wandered the muslim quarter wer china meets islam, bit differnet to the islam community in manchester not quite the curry mile but grabbed some yummy naan bread all the same, saw a chinese mosque (how backwards that sounds). Tonight carried on with the beers and went to proper chinese bar well wierd,very tame compared with home. Really like xi'an, tomorrow getting on a train to Chongquing with the people we met here then doing a cruise of the yangtse river to shanghai. should be good but may be a while til update journal,
miss u all at home, love that u get to experience this with me,nan and grandad who never used internet before are reading my journal and love that the carl riding clan are keeping up to date and mum and ash (who never comments on wot im up to by the way) and all my friends love lots miss home loads so keep the comments and emails coming x x
Sooooo funny Laura x x