Crystalrsland Hotel Xi'an

... if the work was not perfect. The farmer who found the site was left penniless for many years as his farm was confiscated and it was only in recent years when the Queen of England wanted his signature that he was given some status and was able to earn some money from signing books, in fact the poor man was in the gift shop when we were herded there at the end of the visit. The gift shop had some extraordinarily expensive reproductions of warriors and other art for sale that left ...

... Let's Go. But this was a normal map for normal people and it was still useless. It was even in Chinese. Seriously, I give up. Me and maps just don't seem to be meant for each other. Which I suspect means I am destined to spend an awful lot of my future being lost. I stayed in the hotel room long enough to Ooh and Ahh at the air conditioning (to be charitable, my air con in Jinan has had a little bit too much personality recently and my bedroom probably makes hell seem ...

... one evening ventured there and tried a pigs trotter, though there wasn't much to it!

The main reason we came to Xi'an was to see the infamous Terracotta Army, an archaealogical find made only about 40 years ago by a peasant sinking a well into the ground. Thus on our second day we got the bus to the site, about 1 hour from Xi'an. The site consists of 3 pits covered by hangars, each pit a different size ...

... Up early as we have a free morning and I wanted to get out there. Set off with a small group to watch the early morning exercises in the park. It was a great experience and we saw Tai Chi and joined in on some of the chanting. Each park has an outdoor Gym and we were able to go on all the equipment, much to the delight of the locals. They call us "big noses " here and as I have now picked up a bit of chines, they think we are quite funny. We were ...

Hello! We are in Xi'an! We left Pingyao at lunch time on tuesday and got a motorbike that had been converted into a mode of transport for 4 people and 40kgs of luggage, a very heal;thy sounding motorbike. We caught the bus to Xi'an, which was actually a very nice bus. We took over the back seat so as to have room to spread out. Was only a 6 hour journey and ther was even a toilet stop. When we got to Xi'an we somehow negotiated a taxi ride across town, another ...

... we had to take the 914 or 306, but I had no idea where had to catch them. We decided to ask this couple as we assumed they were heading there. We were right. They were an Australian couple named Damien and PJ. They had been living in London and were recently laid off so they were taking a 5 week journey home through Asia. They knew where to catch the bus, so we followed them. We boarded the 306 for 7 yuan and made the journey out there. We got there roughly ...

... happened, I wasn't going to worry too much until it actually did happen. We got to the South gate, which was where we started, and sure enough, the gate was closed and locked!! We checked out two more doors only to find the same thing-they were closed, padlocked, and it was dark! We headed back the way we came since we weren't the only people on the wall...there were just very few others. Perhaps the jokes about sleeping on a park bench were going to be more than ...

... Grace who spoke very good English and chatted to us for ages. When we arrived in Nanjing we got the metro (there's only one line in Nanjing - but there are more stations now than the Lonely Planet says...) to Sanshan Street. Then we walked to find the hostel - Fuzimiao Hostel. It was hard to find, but we were helped along the way by lots of lovely people! The room we were given was not great - it was full of a big group of Americans, and no window in the room ...

... reading this who are on the trip with me- "Russo" was born at this dinner- much love to Lily. Although this was our last night in Xian we were waking up at 6:30am to catch a bus to the airport so I took the opportunity to stay in and catch up on some sleep. If I remember correctly, I found a computer in the hotel and realized I was able to get free internet so I was catching up on some emails. January 23, 2008: 7 ...

... 8pm?). So all the buildings are 1- and 2-story traditional courtyard buildings. Quite a few along the main central streets now contain small inns, and these contain a restaurant at the front, and lodgings in the back/courtyard area. Ours was pretty decent, although you'll have to see my pictures to see what I was talking about the shower. I went to a variety of the museums in town, mostly the military and banking ones. Then I managed to find one of the galleries for the international ...