Karson Xian Xi'an

... is that you will see a bed and to the right of the
bed is a stove. To heat the bed for night time they have a fire
under the stove for cooking but there are outlets for the smoke (and
heat) that travel under the bed. This warms the bed for sleeping in
colder weather. When it is not cold out they use the stove on the
other side of the room.

After our guided tour we went back to
the City Wall for more biking. This ...

... and at 90RMB it seemed a bit steep) you had no choice but to walk through what seemed like 1 km of stalls and stores before you reached the entrance. Many of these places had developed clever tricks in getting tourists into their places. One of the more effective ones was having people standing outside the exits with red flags directing tourists where they needed to go next. It all comes across as a legitimate crowd control technique except where you need to go next is right ...

... able to find most of the stuff like that for a quarter of the price in the Beijing markets. Lunch was pretty average. With dishes like sauted potatoes covered in toffee and chicken with more bones than meat. It probably wasn't that bad, but compared with some of the other food that we have sampled in China, it didn't measure up. Once we got back on the bus, we made the drive to the Terracotta Warriors. Seeing them again was breathtaking. It is ...

... Banpo was a matriarchal clan community of the Yangshao culture in the Neolithic age. It is divided into three sections; the Residential, the Pottery making and the Burial Section. Some of the important remains are; a large moat, a small ditch, house relics, storage pits, pottery kilns and a worship place. The main relics show us the development of the primitive civilization of the Yellow River ...

... line for "special passengers". We had no problem checking in there, and went through security. We are now used to having all of our things gone through, and having to show that all of our items are what they seem to be. Our bottles of hand sanitizer did not make the cut, but we packed others in our checked baggage. We took a cab from the airport to the hotel. It is lovely! We rested a bit, and then ...

... to come and go as we please. There is also a marathon in Beijing in October and Eric and I were talking about signing up for that. There is a stint of it on the Great Wall, which we haven't been to yet. What better way to see it than run on top of it?? That was the purpose of the six mile run today. If we do the marathon, it's about time we start training.

... would go on some items. There will be more on this later in the blog. Then, we met for the afternoon tour of the famous Terracotta Warriors. Julie, our local guide, did a great job explaining and showing us around. She first took us to a shop that showed us how the Qin dynasty made the warriors. Yes, this was more of a shop than a tour, but it was still really neat to see the molds and techniques used. Today, they still have not figured out how to keep the paint on the ...

... it all. Originally, the government did not recognize the farmer as someone important to the history of the Warriors. After a while, since many foreign dignitaries wanted to meet him, they came around and gave him the recognition he deserved. There is a table in the Museum gift shop where he often sits signing autographs for the purchasers of their book about the Museum. At the beginning of our tour of the Museum, Sissia told ...

... Dave used sign language to ask a security guard where the nearest toilet was (we don't need to elaborate on what sign he used, but rest assured he will not be using the same gestures ever again!). Like the station, the train was equally huge - at least 25 carriages ranging from smart double first class sleeper cabins to hard seats for the 12 hour overnight journey. You may be shocked to learn that for the Chinese leg of the trip we actually managed to avoid the ...

... s riksami 1.5kg arasídové varianty tureckého medu za 60Y. Med vydrzí jakékoliv klimatické podmínky a zacházení (kus přezil 20 dnů az domů bez újmy) a v malých dávkách je delikatesní. Rozhodně vsem doporučuji. 7.8.2007 Chengde Budíček tentokrát zvoní v 4:50 - vlak odjízdí brzy. Přes brzké vstávání dorázíme na hlavní nádrazí "za pět minut dvanáct". Vlaky jsou v Číně velmi dlouhé, překvapivě kvalitní a čist ...