Hey everyone, eventually found an internet cafe which, well we say it works, but we still cant upload photos and some of the keyboard buttons are dodgy!!!

The flight was ok, a little tiring, but we had some amusments, there was a chinese guy next to us who put butter in his first cup of tea he had, then tomato ketchup in his second cup of tea!!!! Strange!!

The jet lag has been horendous, even to the point that we shaved Rods hair off through bordem of not being able to sleep throught the night!

We have visited Tiananmen square, the forbidden city, the hutongs (which are the small alleys of PROPER china) and the summer palace and on that day was -2degrees so we werent able to appreciate it fully because it was sooo cold! We have some good photos though!

We met our trip group on wednesday and they are all really nice and from all over the world, there are 12 of us in total we all seem to get on really well!

We went to see a Kung fo show one night by Shaolin monks which was awsome they are so talented! Also another night we went to see the beijing opera which was good and full of acrobatics!

The next day we all headed three and a half hours north on a bus to an unrenovated part of the great wall (Gebeikou) it was amazing but so scarey treking it for 4hours, it was -5degrees with a blast of a wind, the photos will explain better when we get them uploaded. We stayed at a guest house that night which we would say was the start of true back packing, basically we slept and ate in the same extreme layers of clothing we had walked the great wall in and the same the following day although this time it was a renovated part of the wall! That afternoon we drove back to Beijing to catch the night sleeper train(12 hours) to Xi'an.

The train was dodgy but really cool we were middle class so had a room with 6 bunks no door but nevermind we used our backpacks as pillows for security reasons, but it was the best night sleep for Vicki so far because of the motion of the train!

We arrived in Xi'an this morning, had a quick shower got some fresh clothes on and we all went out for a bike ride round the city wall which is 14km long, fortunatley the weather here is considerably warmer at 18degrees so the bike ride and sight seeing round the city was great.

The food has been of much variety! From delicious stuff yourself stupid to pigs trotters, chicken feet, pig head meat and they also cook whole chickens whole i.e. with head and all! And so Vicki has become vegetarian again. The peking duck isnt all that great especially not when they leave the duck head on the table to watch you eat!

We are heading to the Terracotta warriors tomorrow then the next day another overnight train(16hours) to Shanghai, we have been told that Shanghai's computers are far more up to date than these dial-up internet cafes!

We hope everyone is well, hopefully we will update quicker next time and get the photos up because they are really good.

Ta ta