Xi An Fukai Hotel Xi'an

... Somewhat uninspired we were then driven to our lunch stop next to the terracotta warrior site. Warmer indoors we had a group lunch of reasonably tasty rice, soup and 3 or 4 dishes which were not spicy and I think geared to the western palate tourists. After lunch back into the snowy laden gardens and freezing air we walked to the pits of the terracoota warriors which were as expected very large pits with some reconstructed warriors but mostly pits where the broken life size ...

... tickets to the site. Only costing us 90yuan between us instead of 180.

We started of in the cinema and then the museum, going backwards around the site gave us all the information we needed before going to see the army. It is very interesting , no-one knew about the army until 1974 when a farmer was digging a whole for the village well and came across a piece of a terracotta army. It wasn't until 1989 when they finally started to dig the army up.

The ...

... in China. Diesmal hatten wir wied** eine Zimm** im Int**net res**vi**t, was in China wirklich Sinn macht und sollten sogar am Bahnhof abgeholt w**den! Und tatsaechlich, als wir den Bahnhof v**liessen, wartete auch schon jemand mit einem "Sven Viel**" Schild vorm Ausgang, wie praktisch.

Endlich mal mussten wir uns keine Sorgen um den Transport zum Hostel machen und was noch viel bess** war,nicht stundenlang suchen, weil wir mal wied** v**gessen hatten die ...

We had a train to Xian at 9:30A.m. so took a little time to walk thru Peony Park on the way back from coffee at Mc Donald's. I showed Mike where we had taken Sunny, Bel and Elias to play. The train station was full of drama. Our train was over 1hour late and we were waiting just dozing. We heard a commotion and looked to see a man yelling at the train officials. As is ...

... double check my day bag... trying not to panic, I panicked my way through the busy station, taking the same path I had on the way there and FLEW down the stairs to the security check area, where a security lady with a very knowing expression on her face, was holding my wallet... I shouted, 'Oh my God!... Shishye! Shishye! Thank you SO much!!' and, completely forgetting where I was, threw my arms around her to hug her... to which she looked both ...

Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya Today was sadly to be my last day in Xian and my last day with my beautiful Luo Wei. I was to continue on to Shanxi Province and she was to head home to Kaifeng City to spend time with her mother. Even though it was to be my last day in Xian I thought it best to head down stairs and see if I could strike up a deal for ...

We saw something truly unique here. We saw large groups of Chinese citizens standing properly and calmly in line, or queue for our British friends. Sadly these were only clay statues, but still it was very impressive. For anyone who has ever been to Chinatown in SF, you know what we mean. I have seen more westerners in this country get upset when a local citizen moves in front of them and gets to the window first to get ...

... now that it wouldn't cost them anything. They still wouldn't, but said that I could use the phone in my room to call them which completely contradicted the sticker on the phone saying: "No outside calls"! The moron of a receptionist had no idea what what I was talking about when I asked for the number of the operator so I had to pay for the call anyway. After getting the helpdesk to call me back they told me that they had put a block on my card as there had been a lot of activity ...

... only got to see pit 1 and 3, but it was supr cool - Pit 1 particularly! On our return from the trip we headed to Starbucks (yes in China) for some overpriced warm drinks before heading back to the hostel to plan the evening (which landed up being a chilled night in chatting to other travellers around the hostel bar) This morning we hired bikes and cycled along the length of the city walls along with a kiwi guy that we ...

... to the Terracotta Warriors for later that day. We headed off on the tour with 14 other people at 8am and had a great day. The first Emperor of China built the largest tomb in the world for himself. It was 56 square miles and took 750 000 slaves to build (all of whom were killed to keep the tomb`s location a secret)! He also made replicas of 8000 of his best warriors and inserted them into the tomb in three separate pits. He believed that the warriors ...