So we checked into the Han tang hostel in the center of the fortified city of Xian. The workers at the hostel were awesome, finding us a random room on the top floor, leading outside to the rooftop garden, despite not having a reservation for tonight as we had assumed we would be on the mountain. We then talked to them about the logistics of going to visit the terra-cotta warriors on Sunday, then driving out to the airport for our 6:20pm hopper plane. After some...

So we kinda survived our first overnight train. Last night after we had grabbed some dinner we headed back to our hostel to retrieve our luggage, then trekked back the the main road near subway. All we knew was the general location of the bus stop, and that we needed to get on bus 67. We found the stop pretty easily (bus stops here are really well labelled and there are queues painted on the ground for each bus) and our bus came within 10 minutes. Then we realize...

So we had a real Chinese dinner last night. As we were walking back to our hostel we were feeling pretty hungry, and we decided to be brave. For dinner, we chose a small restaurant in the main hutong street by our hotel. It was the smaller then our kitchen, with tables full of middle aged to older Chinese people and not an english word in sight. The cooks, which were an older Chinese couple that spoke no english, seated us at a table with another man who was asle...

Today started off really confusing. We got up early with the intention of walking through tiananmen square, then visiting the forbidden city. But police men were everywhere and they had roped off the walkway underpasses and crosswalks so we couldn't get to either attaction. We kept walking further and further, trying to navigate around the blocks, but we finally rage quit and decided to visit the summer palace instead. We trekked back to the metro station and att...

Today was pretty amazing. We woke up early got all our gear on. For me, that was a shirt, 3 sweaters, a jacket, 3 pairs of pants, a scarf, mitts, and two pairs of socks. Hey, it's freaking cold outside. In full daylight we could see more of the village we were in; the ancient terra-cotta roofs and wooden walls, the tiny stone streets, and the mountains surrounding it on all sides. Lining the very top of the mountain was the great wall: our destination of the day....