.......The second part of our "experience" began with an 18 hour sleeper train from Bejing to Xi'an (pronounced Sheyuan).  Our initial thoughts were sheer horror!! It was like a prison cell with both of our beds being at the top of the train.  We had to share our 'cabin' with four Chinese people who had taken up all the luggage room therefore we had to sleep with our backpacks between our legs.  We soon realised however that we were fairly lucky with regards to who we shared our cabin with: as next door it was full with the most revolting food either of us had ever seen - we stopped complaining at this point.  We passed the time by playing hangman, the name game (going back to our youth!!) and planning the next part of our trip.  The journey ended up going quicker than we imagined and we were woken at 02:45am by the ticket lady hitting us and shouting in Chinese (we guessed she was telling us we were at our stop).  So we got our backpacks and looked for our lift to the hostel..... you can guess what happened next.....they weren't there!  We waited until 4.30am then took a taxi to the hostel where we crashed.

We had a well deserved lazy morning, and then checked out the sights Xi'an had to offer.  First of all we went to the Bell Tower which is in the centre of Xi'an and dates back to the 14th century.  We listened to a musical performance here which they hold every day.  The next tower we visited was the Drum Tower which marks the Muslim quarter of Xi'an.  Again we saw a performance here and the Chinese in their performing glory.  We wandered around the town and both felt much more at ease here than we did in Bejing.  It was much cleaner and friendlier and we generally felt more comfortable.  We went to a Chinese market and practiced our bartering-damn we're good!!  Also we saw the Muslim quarter and the Great Mosque: we didn't go in them, we could see enough from the outside.  That evening we went and sampled some more Chinese dishes - the trick is to only go in the restaurant if they have an English menu and pictures!!  The restaurant we chose was great as the chairs were swinging and the tables were surrounded by greenery, it felt like we were in the 'secret garden'.  We wanted to go to a bar but the only ones we saw looked 'seedy' therefore we avoided them. We ended up back at our hostel drinking beer as its cheap.

The next day was the tour we were really looking forward to "The Army of Terracotta Warriors".  We had a very informative guide which was a bonus.  The Terracotta Warriors are the eighth wonder of the world and is one of China's top historical sights.  The warriors are 2000 years old and were only discovered in 1974 by a farmer (who we saw).  There are three pits with warriors, horses and weapons that have been restored.  It really is magnificent and will definitely go down as a highlight.  We saw how they make the replica terracotta warriors in a factory.  We then had lunch, again more Chinese cuisine.  The next stop was to the history museum, where we learnt about dynasty's and more emperors!!! 

That evening we tried to update the site for you all, except it didnt go according to plan!  We had written almost all of the blog and then a Chinese workman came and was fiddling around with the electrics, we asked him to wait but no he couldnt - he cut a wire and the whole electricity blew with sparks coming from the cupboard.  We couldnt believe it! So, it had to be written all again.  Thats why the photos wouldnt load up for most of you as it messed around with the whole system.  We finished our evening off with more beer!

Our last day in Xi'an was a visit to the Panda's.  We went to a resuce centre which housed about 20 sick Panda's.  We also saw some other interesting animals - look at the photos.  It was great to see the Panda's in China as there are a maximum of 2000 left in the world.  We could also see the mountain where they are left in the wild.  This tour was finished off with lunch, again local food - are you impressed.  Later that day we walked around the city walls which is of only a few cities in China where the old city walls are still visible.  As we had some time in the evening we decided to load the photos on the site - again disaster.  We ended up deleting both of our memory cards with ALL our pictures on them.  However, they were in the recycle bin so after 5 hours of uploading etc. we finally got them back, horray.  This is causing us a headache - surely it shouldnt be this difficult - ok dont answer that!!!!  We all learn from our mistakes hey!

So, you have come to the end of our second stop, hope you've enjoyed it, we have. 
Next Xi'an to Wuhan................................

Missing you Lots
Lots of Love
Carly and Claire
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