Xiyuan Hotel Xi'an

... you'd expect would be somewhere further afield than 30km or so from your main house. It's like me going to cleveland for my holidays. Anyway, this place had plenty of trees and a monster lake so was no doubt cooler. Obviously they operated on the principle the no assassins would make a professional hit while royals are taking a vacation from their busy schedule of terror and fear mongerng from the city centre. All very impressive indeed!

You ...

... The main reason we are stopping there is to break up the journey to Kanding, which is a tibetan town in the Himalayan Mountains. We've tried to find pills to remedy altitude sickness, but have yet to find them. They will probably sell them closer to the mountains.

I've tried to use facebook to catch up with people back home, but to stop the riots in the northwest spreading further ...

... Traffic was absolutely crazy, so we ended up walking the last 15mins of the journey. Our tour guide is called Kris, she talked on the bus, so that when we got there we wouldn't have to wait around and keep stopping every two minutes for an explanation. They are not as great as i expected.. I think seeing them on the movies has spoilt it for me.. or maybe they are just not that special?? There was only really one hall with ...

... relics that have been unearthed. The LP also says that it was closed for renovations around 2004/2005! I must say, I find it hard to believe that anything within has been cleaned, weeded or even touched since the time of building. I had spotted some of the large advertisements around the city and they made it look and sound fantastic and after reading in the LP that is had been closed for ...

... I'm biking. Along with this group of teachers, the Chinese seem to think a lot about food as well. After World War II, China found itself in the midst of a civil war - the Kuomintang, headed by Chiang Kaishek was on one side, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), headed by Mao Zedong, was on the other. When the CCP gained a majority of control and Mao proclaimed the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Ching Kaishek fled to ...

... in Xi'an we went to Emperor Qin Shihhuangdi's tomb entrance. This tomb is over 2,000 years old and is said to be the #2 place in the world that will take your breath away. The 7,000 terracotta warriors, horses and chariots was the most magnificent thing I have ever seen in my life. I can't wait to tell you more about Xi'an in my next post... Good luck on finals, Greenhills students...FOC start studying!!!

Scott picked us up a the hotel, after we had another very good breakfast, we headed to the airport. Scott took us all the way to the China Air check in area and to the security area. We gave him an envelope with some Yuan (China money) and an Oregon lapel flag pin. The flight to Xian was uneventful. Although Xian has 6 million people, but the airport was much much smaller than Beijing and as we collected our bags, we could see our new ...

... they came about and why the warriors are damaged. Site 3, the smallest, had the Generals and high ranking officers in it along with some horses. This site had been badly damaged during the raids and consequently only had a few complete statues. Site 2 is still largely being excavated, and doesn't contain any complete warriors. There are however some complete warriors on the side depicting archers, generals, and infantry ...

... are all individually different and based upon the actual warriors at the time which makes it all the more interesting. Final thoughts about the terracotta Warriors The warriors were not all they were cracked up to be in my opinion, ok yes it was a great find and quite amazing for what it was but it just didn't interest me that much which I was surprised about. I know the other English lads I was with felt the same as.

... Ve vlaku můzeme konečně vyzkouset hard-sleeper oddělení - opět mě kvalita příjemně překvapila, dokonce jsou k dispozici i peřiny s polstářem. 10.8.2007 Xian Okolo poledne vystupujeme příjemně vyspalí v Xianu. Po chvilce nalézáme i kontakt z Xiang Zi Men Youth Hostelu, kam máme zdarma odvoz. Vybavením je to nejlepsí ubytko, kde jsme v Číně byli. Super sprchy i prádelna. Opět tu vidíme fajn ...