After an orientation walk this morning, as I dragged my feet like a zombie, and a quick nanna-nap, we went to the Terracotta Warriors. They were interesting, from a historical point of view, but not as impressive as I'd imagined. Even so, I was pretty intrigued by the emporers determination to have such an extravagent mausoleum. It took 40 years to build that afterlife army, and the guy wasn't even emporer for that long! It always amuses me how we all try to gua...

So after twelve hours in a carriage of air stale with sweat, noodles and the stench of cigarettes floating in from between the carriages, I could not wait to get off our train to xi'an! John and I had two bottom bunks beside eachother (there were not doors or anything, but "sets" of 6 bunks). On the top of my bunks was a middleaged chinese woman with a funny looking instrument who didnt say a word the whole trip, and in the middle a young girl who giggl...

The rest of the group went out to try some Peking Duck for dinner, so John and I decided to hit the night market again! I tried some friend noodles and veges from a stall that cleverely marketed the fact that they sold vegetarian food, and revelled in this street exploding with noise and potential photos! I got some more caramalised fruit (it was very good) from a man who shouted "I love you! I love you!" and some coconut milk (not so good) which I susp...

I HIKED THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!! I cannot get over it! We drove for a coupleof hours from Beijing in a minibus (back in our old trek comfort zone) bumping and jolting over speed bumps （one time the driver flew over the speedbump, flinging us all a good foot into the air!) until we reached the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Puffing and panting all the way, we reached the wall and WOW! it was even cooler than I imagined! It was surprisingly tiring (I had t...

So, its official: the ultimate taste bud ECSTASY is caramalised pineapple and strawberries - on a stick!!! For dinner tonight we walked down Wangfujing Street which was so lit-up it was almost as bright as daytime, and crossed into a sidestreet lined with stall and stall of the WEIRDEST food i have ever seen (most of it on a stick) Fried seahorses, dogmeat noodles, scorpian-on-a-stick, watery soup of floating tentacles, bbq coccoons, centipedes, silkworms and sea...