So our 3 days in Xi'an were really good.
In Xi'an itself (which at a mere 3.6 million people is a hamlet by Chinese standards) there were a few nice old monuments etc to wander around, although its main attraction are the completely intact city walls(all 14km of them) of which we walked around approximately 1km before we got bored, and cold.
Xi'an was a lot slower paced than Shanghai, (although you still dice with death any time you try to cross a road!) so we had lots of time just to chill out and relax.
The staff in our hostel were really nice and friendly, didn't want to leave! Chris fell in love with our tour guide Ji Ji as well, bless!
Chris was also told he looks chinese by one of the other girls, i'll let you decide - votes please!
Our main reason for coming though was to visit the terracotta army.
Suppose there isn't much to say other than wow!
I hadn't appreciated before I got there how many of them there actually were.
In the main pit there were 6000 of them!..and they're still excavating.
Definitely worth the trip to Xi'an just to see them.
I'll not say anymore, just look at the photos.
The main pit
Up closer
Beijing
We've been here in Beijing now for 3 days, and loving it all.
Again, as everything seems to be in China, its absolutely massive. We've worked out the subway system though so we're getting about fine enough.
We've pretty much been filling up our time doing all the usual touristy stuff.
We've been to:
Tianamen Square- very big and very full of army and police types (just found out that its 50 years since the invasion of Tibet so I think the authorities are a bit tetchy! As foreigners though we get no hassle and are pretty much ignored by the police)
Chris trying to blend in
The Forbidden City- Nice enough, lots of Chinese looking buildings. I think if we knew even a little about Chinese history it might have meant more to us!
The Olympic Park- Really impressive. We got to walk around inside the birds nest stadium which was totally surreal, and really didn't look that big once you were standing in the middle of it all. The whole place did feel a bit Disney-esque though, from the dancing Olympic mascots to the constant (and slightly irritating) feelgood music across the whole park
The bird is this big!
Those crazy dancing mascots!
Great Wall- Definitely worth the trip in itself. Once we had walked far enough along to the less tourist ridden parts the whole thing just looks amazing. Its also really steep and treacherous, we both slipped more than once! But apart from Chris's mild hypothermia we both made it back in one piece.
We've also been getting adventurous with our dining out in Beijing. We had a lovely mongolian type meal the other night. Basically we had to order lots of raw ingredients, beef, spinach etc and then we were meant to boil them in a little table top cauldren thing. Being silly foreigners though we couldn't work any of it out so we ended up having one of the waitresses seconded to our table who cooked all our food for us! I say one waitress, often there were two of them, occasionally three, and at one point four! Couldn't ask for better service I suppose! The meal was lovely though, we're gonna go back before we leave(and cook the food ourselves this time!)
A less succesfull dining experience was our duck and noodle soup cafe night. All i'll say is internal organs and legs!
Anyway, we have one more full day here before heading off to Japan.
Adios for now.
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