Xibei University Hotel Xi'an

... costs £1 each for the whole meal!! Apparently there is no bar on campus and every student has to live in dorms on campus for all 4 years of University so they study ************'t get distracted - ummmm, definitely not how we do Uni! After the meal we walk round this beautiful part of the city to watch the water fountain dancing to music and the Wild Goose Pagoda. Off to bed for an early night as 7am start for our flight to Chengdu (and the Pandas, yey!)

... really celebrate the Queens birthday over celebrating Children's Day? In fact to make it even funnier, we choose to celebrate her birthday many months after her actual birthday.

People's Republic of China

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

In the People's Republic of China, Children's Day is celebrated on June 1 and is formally known as "The June 1st International Children's Day. When the People's Republic of China was first established ...

... later. In fact, the weapons were preserved so well that they are still sharp, and some of the farmers who discovered them actually got injured by those weapons. It also turns out that in the ancient times, every weapon was signed by the weaponeer who created it, so that if the weapon was of low quality, the weaponeer would have been punished. I wish they have applied this policy today to some of the Chinese products... The last thing you can see in ...

... day by aimlessly walking around the north western quarter of the city. You know no matter how many cities I visit and no matter how long I am here I will never get used to many of the ways they do things. It is only when we go camping or I guess a when a tourist goes to Australia that you 'boil the billy' on an open flame. Here it is a normal every day thing in most parts of China. As ...

... they were each carved by hand and done by a single man, who would sign his name to it. We went into the 3 pits which are open to the public. The first pit is the largest with more than 6000 warriors in it, the second pit has more than 1000 warriors and the 3rd mostly still unexcavated only has 68 warriors. Qin eventually became the first emporer of China and during his rule, he had his men build the Terracotta Warriors as well as his Mausoleum and The Great Wall of China ...

... ever come to China, BARGAIN HARD! Even our tour guide Terry was impressed. Then, we went to get a fake North Face jacket for Layton. It was the same deal as the watch. We had been given a VERY low price that morning and yet, the price that evening was MUCH higher. Layton did a great job of getting two jackets for 300 yuan (~$42). These were big jackets too. The original price they gave was 940. Nice work, Layton. Really, there is no right price for any of the stuff ...

... of the shops and hotels and all the buildings seemed to have intricate wooden latticework and brass fittings. Our hotel was set in a 200 year old house with a central courtyard and atmosphere to burn. It was very unlike the faceless block-like hotels we were used to from our last visit to China . We spent a fun couple of days exploring temples, shrines, and ornamental gardens but the highlight by far was the walk along the city walls. For a start, there ...

... the Temple grounds. There was a happy Buddha in one of the courtyards and we were told that if you rub his tummy and nipples it would give you good luck. I'm only uploading the picture of Mom touching his belly. Use your imagination to picture what it looked like when she touched the nipples. Just outside the temple we came across a group of string players with a singer. We found it interesting that the locals would ...

... especially the last 2 kms, which had a lot of steps. After I reached the spot where the cable car also goes, the amount of Chinese tourists became enormous. From here pretty much steps all the way. There are five peaks here: North, East, South (the highest), West en Centre Peak. Apart from the Centre Peak I visited them all. The scenery here was fantastic and it was a very sunny day as well, with clear views most of the day. Near East Peak I met 6 young Chinese (2 girls, 4 ...

... housed in buildings and were less impressive. At the information center we watched a 360 degree movie about the history of the warriors. It took something like 40 years to create all of the warriors which were placed in a tomb awaiting the body of the emperor. The complete waste of resources and man-power used to create the tomb, along with other instances of oppression, led to an uprising and the tomb was destroyed and set on fire. The tomb ...