Hello everybody!!

Now, our first blog entry was more of a group email, so if you didn't see that then we can resend...however, we now have more to add so here goes...

After settling in really well to Shanghai and living the high life (!), unfortunately we had to leave and get a train down to Xi'an. We thought this would be perfect, get a train overnight (so no accommodation needed) and sleep through the 20 hour journey...this was not the case...we could only get a 'hard' seat and for 20 hours this was not comfortable to say the least. (Before we left, Lou labelled it 'Character Building' but half way through, decided it was in fact 'Character Destroying'). We set ourselves targets, e.g. breakfast first thing, 2pm lunch (of crackers and dairylea cheese), dinner at 7pm-and by then we'd be half way there! But of course, half of 20 is 10. And 10 hours is a long bloomin time!! By 7 o'clock the Character Destruction had set in! What made it ten times worse was the constant feel of peoples eyes on you. FOR 20 HOURS! The people here are fascinated by westerners, so throughout the entire journey they watched our every move and even laughed in our faces when we pulled out a packet of crisps to eat or walked in and out of the toilet. Crazy! So basically it was hell, but we kept ourselves busy by laughin at the guy opposite who was the spittin chinese image of Paul Newman and thinking...this is better than being in work!!

Still, we made it to Xi'an! It was smaller than Shanghai but actually much nicer, a bit quieter but great night life-like a lovely little night market in the Muslim quarter and a brilliant bar at our hostel, we made lots of friends, two of which will also be in Vietnam etc around the same time so possible meeting there. As I sit here trying to think of the great thingsa we did in Xian...i remembered the main reason we came, the Terracotta Army!! It was incredible, how they didn't know they were there for so long. ALso the Farmer who discovered them whilst digging a well, was there and seems to spend everyday just sitting there being looked at and signing books-what a job!!

We are now in Beijing. It is cold and wet, and feels just like home! After our horrendous train journey to Xian and the fact we couldn't get any 'sleeper' beds to Beijing we decided on a flight, mostly because it was 2 hours rather than 12 and the same price! We even got a free snack (consisting of cucumber and carrots and cake, nice).

So that it is til now! We are hoping when we get to Thailand we can get on facebook to catch up with you lot and download some photos!! There are tons already!

We'll be in touch soon to let you know how Beijing is!

Take care all x x x