did say I would write more frequently, and it has been over a week…BUT!!I have managed to keep on top of my photo uploading, so that’s definitely got to count for something?!?!Anyway, I’ve got a bit to talk about as we left Hope on Sunday, and we’re now in Xian where the Terracotta Warriors are, so here goes…

The rest of our time at Hope went in a bit of a blur, we took the kids for pre-school every day last week except Thursday, and we did lots of fun things like making glittery butterflies using paper plates so that they could flap their wings on the Monday, doing colour charts on Tuesday, painting on Wednesday (as the smaller kids didn’t really have the manual dexterity to cope with any craft projects!) and making handprint angels on Friday, our last day, as well as lots of singing, including ‘ABC’ of course (which is Jayne’s favourite and she insists on singing it about every 5 minutes, even though she sings ‘A B C D E F J J J J J L M N O P’ despite our best efforts to teach her the proper letters!). We both had such fun with the children and they were brilliantly behaved for the most part, and I hope in some small way we were able to make a difference to them by helping with their English and getting them used to strange faces. They all have so much love to give and are so special, I hope they all find very happy homes once they’re ready for adoption.

One of Hope’s staff, and American guy called Mike, was visiting from one of the other facilities in Luoyang, and he took us under his wing a bit, driving us into Beijing on the Tuesday afternoon where we were able to go to starbucks (black sesame and green tea frappuccino anyone?!they were surprisingly tasty!). We also went to an amazing place called Art District 798 which used to be lots of electronics factories, but it’s been converted into over 100 contemporary art galleries in the last few years, and there are also lots of kitschy little shops and restaurants too. There are loads of really interesting sculptures dotted about the place (see photos for a few), and the place has a really cool feel because of it’s industrial setting. I’d definitely recommend it if you are planning a trip to Beijing any time soon. We also met some of Mike’s friends who were teachers in Luoyang but holidaying around China for a few weeks. They were also american, and good craic- one guy in particular, Michael, had been living in China for 4 years and had pretty much fluent chinese which was very impressive- it’s so weird yet fantastic to look at a western person and expect them to speak english, but instead their mouth opens and out comes these sounds that I can’t even dream of being able to recognise!!The Americans were craving western food as apparently the only variation on chinese food in provincial Luoyang is the newly opened indian restaurant (!) so we headed out for mexican food, which was a very welcome change from nanny food for us at that stage!!

Last Thursday we didn’t have preschool as the Venezuelan ladies were taking it so Robin organised the driver for us for the day (the driver had some free time and so we didn’t have to pay anything which was really kind of him) and Jade and I headed to the Great Wall site at Mutianyu, about 90km away from central Beijing. When we got to the car park, at about 9.30 in the morning, it wasn’t too hot and the wall looked pretty close, so we decided to skip the pricey cable car and walk up the steps to the top…BIG MISTAKE!apparently our weeks of carrying heavy backpacks and the endless walking we’ve done hasn’t actually made us any fitter, and we had to stop no less than 3 times on the way up to catch our breath!!It was a lot further than we expected, and there were soooo many steps, but eventually, puffing and panting and in dire need of a cool drink of water to ease our poor unfit little bodies, we got to the top. And it was definitely worth it. Spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and the wall itself with its’ twisting and turning pathway and near-vertical- looking- at -times- peaks and troughs cheered us up somewhat, but the best was still to come on the way down as we avoided walking or cable-car-ing back down in favour of an altogether different thrill- a toboggan slideway!!Basically just a big massive slide down the mountain for kids and grown-ups a like (a bit like a helter skelter but you ride on a toboggan thing and not a burlap sack!), the 50 Yuan (about 5 pounds) price tag was definitely worth it as we whizzed down the mountainside, and to my shame I couldn’t help but emit a loud ‘wheeeeeeeeee!’ everytime I rounded a particularly sharp corner, much to the amusement of the toboggan workers stationed all round the place I’m sure!!!!We grabbed some dumplings and the coke that our lovely driver had kindly bought us, and then set off for the Summer Palace which is just on the outskirts of the centre of Beijing. By then it had really heated up, the sun was shining and the crowds (pretty much all chinese people) were out in their hundreds and thousands quite literally. The Summer Palace is a series of temples and palaces set around a beautiful lake, and although unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any boat trips going round the lake that day, the place is still quite spectacular to see, and a really good example of typical chinese architecture from back in the day (I probably should be more specific but my little brain can’t remember what dynasty or emperor actually built it!)! There were looooads of steps though to get up to the main temple though, which Jade and I weren’t too pleased about, but we climbed right up there anyway and got to see some great views of the city at the top.

The last Friday we were at Hope, our day was pretty busy as Robin asked us to do 2 bag pick ups at the airport (people coming into China that are aware of the work of Hope will often bring an extra suitcase for them as medical and other supplies aren’t always available in China and even if they are they can be very expensive), one at 2pm and one at 10pm, but we didn't mind as we were able to get starbucks which was a real treat. We also decided to cook our own dinner that day, and made a noodle, onion, beansprout and spicy sausage stir fry with ingredients we bought at the local shop, though the spicy sausage didn’t look or taste very much like the sort of sausage that we would get and I’m not 100% that it was actually meat!! We spent Saturday mainly just relaxing and playing with the kids as it was our last full day, and we cooked a yummy meal of pasta (with proper pasta sauce dontcha know!) before settling in to a cheesy rom com (one of many mainly pirated dvds we’d borrowed off Mona the nurse!!). Sunday came around all too soon, and packed and ready, we caught a lift with Mona on her way to church and the driver dropped us off at Leo Hostel, where we spent Sunday and Monday night.

After checking out the room and booking our train tickets from Xian to Shanghai at reception (we wanted to get hard sleeper tickets for the 15 hour journey as they are cheaper than soft sleeper, but we were silly and left it too late so only soft sleeper was available, with a hefy price tag of about 55 pounds, but I’m excited to see what luxurious looking soft sleepers are like though!), we walked the 15 minutes down the road to the Forbidden City, via Tianamen Square which is just opposite. Now, bearing in mind it was the bank holiday weekend, which is a national holiday in China too, the Forbidden City was absolutely jam packed FULL of chinese people!!literally thousands of people were there looking at the impressive (and absolutely massive)former residence of emperors, famous for its’ picture of Mao at its’ gate. We spent a couple of hours inside until our feet were hurting and our brains were getting frazzled from being pushed from pillar to post by the crazy crowds, so we dandered around the lovely riverside park round the outside, and headed to Tianamen Square for a rest. We got there and had a sit down for an hour on a little grassy area to watch the people go by. Two funny things that we’ve noticed so far: 1) there seems to be a massive trend here for couples to wear matching outfits. And when I say matching, I mean matching!!we’ve spotted love sick couples in identical t-shirts, or trousers, or both along with matching shoes dozens of times so far, and when we manage to get some photos of this phenomenon, I’ll be sure to post them!!I mean I kind of understand maybe wanting to co-ordinate outfits so you don’t clash, but (no offence Gary!) I would never want to wear the same outfit as my partner, that’s just a fashion don’t!!!
Number 2) of the funny things (and we did hear of this from my mum and dad too) is that lots of babies and toddlers wear these split pants that literally have a big split down the arse, presumably so that if nature calls the parents can just hold their kid at arms length and they can just let rip?!we’re not 100% on that one!!Though we did see a kid that obviously wasn’t feeling very well and was pooping all over the pavement…that was not a pretty sight, poor wee thing!

Anyway, we hung out at Tianamen Square for a good while, and decided to take position around the flag pole as we’d read that the soldiers that guard the square raising and lowering the flag each day is a pretty cool sight to see. We were among the first lots of people to sit down on the ground near the flag pole, but soon there were thousands of chinese people clamouring around us for a view of the spectacle, and at about 6pm loads of soliders marched out from across the road at the Forbidden City and took up position in a square all around the flag pole, and the higher up ones used megaphones to tell the crowd at the front to all sit down (we were ok cos we were tired and already sitting down!). It was a pretty fun look into chinese culture actually, cos there was a chinese guy behind us who was obviously pretty patriotic and was shouting at everyone is chinese, trying to get the sneaky people who kept standing up to sit down and keep back. Loads of people in the crowd kept sniggering at him, and the soldiers themselves were obviously in a good mood as they handed him a megaphone and let him do the organising, laughing the whole time!!Eventually, just before 7, the higher-ups marched out, and the flag was slowly but surely lowered just as the sun was setting. It was actually rather impressive, and I think I probably went slightly overboard on the photos as the chinese flag is pretty mesmerizing when you stare at it for too long! That night we headed to a nearby restaurant for Peking Duck (which was really good, but I think I ate too quickly). We also got brought out some yummy stir-fried vegetables and duck soup at the end of the meal, which looked like it had all the uneaten bits of duck in it, dodgy looking bones and all!!It tasted ok though, just quite salty. The hostel we stayed at had a really good common area, and a masssive widescreen tv, so we got back and watched Iron Man before having an early-ish night。

On Monday morning, we got up and out pretty early after a quick breakfast, and tried to head to the Temple of Heaven via the subway, though it was shut for the bank holiday annoyingly, so we hopped on a bus and hoped that we wouldn’t get lost!!Thankfully the conductor (a lady- it’s so grreat to see lots of working women after a dearth of that sort of thing in India, probably because of the culture I guess) was able to indicate where we had to get off after we showed her the chinese name, and so at 1Yuan (10p), the bus was a quick and cheap option that worked really well for us. The Temple of Heaven was cool, similar architectural style to the Summer Palace and Forbidden City (lots of red buildings with gold, green and blue trim, dragons everywhere etc), but the best part was walking through the surrounding park and taking in all the different activites that chinese people take part in, from ribbon dancing to tai chi with swords, karaoke chinese opera singing to keep fit line dancing style, it seems anything (and everything) goes!It’s great to see such an emphasis on keeping fit, especially as it was mostly middle-aged and older people getting down to it!take note new prime minister whoever you may be, that’s what we need to cure the obesity crisis!!Also, I don’t think I mentioned earlier that the other week Jade and I went for an explore down the road when we were at Hope and discovered a little parky area which had loads of keep fit outdoor equipment in it like a cross trainer, sit up board and a machine that very oddly brought you into a kind of 45 degree position from sitting when you pulled down on the handles, and it seems that they have them in all the parks, very fun!Anyway, Temple of Heaven Park was great fun, and surprisingly peaceful to walk around even though it’s right in the centre of the city. We headed to the nearby Pearl Market after that, where Jade bought some jade earrings, and I got man-handled by two very sweet but very insistent sales girls who tried to make me buy lots of fake Louis Vuitton and D&G purses by grabbing my arms and telling me they loved me…Needless to say I didn't buy anything!!In the afternoon we ended up grabbing lunch at the food hall of a shopping mall (one of many, Beijing is torture to poor travellers like us who can’t afford to splurge on lots of goodies!!) which was really great as you picked your food (vegetables, meat, herbs etc) fresh from big bowls, they weighted it and you pay then they stir fry it all up in soy sauce, garlic and ginger. We had chicken and beef (and we think accidentally some sort of offal- we’re hoping it wasn’t dog- which was ok actually) with broccoli, noodles, bamboo, coriander, pak choi and mange tous, which was absolutely delicious.

We tried in vain to find something which we’d seen in the Lonely Planet called the Underground City, which as it sounds, is an underground city that Mao apparently started to build as he thought that’s where the future of communist was because it would be safer than living above ground with the threat of nuclear stuff and so on. Pretty weird. Anyway, we ended up getting pretty lost, and a chinese guy that directed us had never even heard of it even when we showed him the name in chinese so we don’t know whether it’s still open to the public, and we ended up frustratingly having to walk a long, long way back to the hostel as Qianmen subway station was still closed and the tube took us to the next stop. After a few hours’ rest, we headed out to the night food market which was about half and hours’ walk away in the Wangfujing shopping area (yet again, torture for us!), and it was AMAZING!!I had bbq-ed meat in pitta, spicy pork on a stick, prawn wanton things, dumplings, strawberries and pineapple on a stick, and toffee strawberries which are the same idea as toffee apples, but so juicy and delicious!!There were also lots of weird and wonderful things that I kind of steered clear of, such as scorpions, seahorses, worms and grubs on sticks, and sea urchins. As if that wasn’t enough, we got some ice-cream afterwards- I had meringue and banana chocolate flavours, sooooo good!!!We dandered back to the hostel via Tianamen square which was lit up really prettily, and turned in for the night.

Yesterday, our last day in Beijing, we got up early and packed our bags up, leaving them with te hostel while we went out for the day. First of all we headed to the Hall of the people which is in the middle of Tianamen Square, and joined the massive queue that had already gathered to get a glance of the preserved body of the great man himself, Chairman Mao. A testament to chinese efficiency, we were pushed and poked through security (literally,by the security guards), and the fast moving queue meant we got about a 2 second glimpse of his waxy face. Pretty creepy actually, but a quirky thing to do. It was interesting to observe the hard core people who bought flowers to lay in the outer chamber as they did their bows of respect before placing them with all the rest. We headed back to the hostel, and met our roomate- a lovely swedish girl called Freda who has been travelling for 4 months and headed back to Sweden today- for a slap-up breakfast (bacon, scrambled eggs, toast AND a hash brown!) at another hostel nearby, then we headed to the subway, where we caught it to the stop we needed, and then proceeded to get on a bus going in the wrong direction-oops!!!We got a taxi eventually, and got to Art District 798 again, as we’d both wanted to come back, and invited Freda along as she hadn’t seen it. We spent a cool couple of hours wandering about and seeing things we hadn’t seen the last time, before getting some lunch then heading back to the hostel so Jade and I could get to the train station for our train at 4.45.

The train itself was really good, a bit cleaner and fancier than the Indian trains we’d got, with proper duvets and carpeted bits along the corridors!!There are also hot water geysers in every carriage so you can have water for tea etc, and in our case, noodles!!We had bottom bunks, which worked out quite well as we didn’t have to climb up to the nose-bleed seats to go to sleep!!Though the hard sleepers lived up to their name, and although I slept most of the 12 hour journey, my back was killing me when we woke up at 5am to get ready to get off!!Our hostel here in Xian is really great, spotlessly clean,with all the mod cons and very helpful staff- we even managed to wrangle a discount with our young person’s travel cards (amazing considering they are pretty much good for nothing!) so it’s only costing us 4 pounds each a night which is half what we paid in Beijing for a not-as-nice room. Today we went to check out the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, which are the cities main touristy things, two big towers in the centre of the city, one predictably with a big bell in it that used to be rung back in the day, and the other with actually quite a few drums in it. Both of them had traditional chinese music performances on inside when we went (drums and bells again!!) which was cool, though we didn’t get to ding the bell or bang the drums as you had to pay extra to do it!!We’ve also visited to Muslim quarter this afternoon, where we wandered the streets drolling over all the yummy looking street food (I got some spicy meat on a stick which was great, and Jade got some sweet bready treats) and checked out the Great Mosque. It’s pretty odd to see arabic and chinese characters written side by side on religious things, but really interesting too!!

Tomorrow we are planning to head out to what Xian is really known for, the Terracotta Warriors, which I’m really looking forward to. For now, my head is killing me after staring at the computer screen for the last few hours writing this so I’m going to love you and leave you!!talk soon, I promise!!

Lots of love from Xian xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx