Xifei Hotel Xi'an

... You will see from the images that the architecture is pretty amazing - the stuff I am sure you've all seen in books or on the box at some time or another. It is interesting to note that the forbidden city is barren of flora landscape. Not a tree in sight. This makes it frightfully hot and a little stark. Trees are a good hiding spot for assasins, so this neurosis was dealt with by employing a concrete landscape. The summer palace, the royal summer ...

... we at least know a few fundamental phrases because the places we plan to travel to are far from the typical tourist paths.

The train will leave Xian tonight at 8pm and will arrive in Chengdu tommorow at 1pm. We've stocked up with 'convienient noodles' which is what the locals take with them; one pot for dinner and one pot for breakfast. There isn't much to do in Chengdu, except for a panda ...

Got a bus at 8.30 to the Terracotta warrior factory, we got stuck in traffic on the way there so the bus driver decides he is gonna drive on the pavement to skip past the traffic jam... we couldn't believe it. When we got to the factory we saw them being made, and painted and learnt a bit about the history behind them. After a bit of gift shopping we hopped back on the bus and drove for two and a half hours to the Terracotta Warrior ...

... The Lonely Planet will tell you that; Banpo is the earliest example of the Neolithic Yanshao culture. It appears to have been occupied from 4500BC until around 3750BC. As less than a quarter of the site has been excavated, little is known of the early agrarians. However, circumstantial evidence indicates that the culture was probably matriarchal and that also of interest at the site are the ...

... told us to avoid the ones shaped like monkeys! None were served luckily. We walked from the restaurant to the city wall and hired bikes for the 13.7km round trip. It began to rain and I realised that I was ill-equipped to deal with any other sort of weather than summer (it's hard to imagine anything but tropical weather when you live in KL) so we went to the markets and I bought a toasty warm jacket :) Much ...

... there is not much on offer. If it was not for the terracotta warriors I doubt many tourists would come to Xian. We visited the warriors which took about an hour to see everything, the first dig site is the largest and is in a big bunker and has the majority of the warriors in. There are 2 other sites which are alot smaller and shows how they were digged out and restored. What is nice about the warriors is that ...

... discovered them and he signed our books. sadly tho he doesn't allow photo's.

... particularly happy! The central part of the city is surrounded by old city walls and in the heart of it there is a Drum Tower and Bell Tower. Apparently these were origianlly used to mark dawn and nightfall and date back to the 14th century. The city is very geared up for tourists and every major attraction can be done via a tour of one form or other...or when you are on a bit of a budget like us, you do it yourselves for a fraction of the ...

... floor in seconds to the check-in desk located beneath a 30-floor open atrium above. Next door, the world's tallest building is finishing construction. Entire skyscrapers become giant TV screens at night. The modern architectures of mammoth-sized skyscrapers, office complexes and condominiums are candy to the eyes, interesting to observe, and they are everywhere, going over every horizon to the point that ultra-uniqe is commonplace here. While Phoenix ...

... Xi'an that had Jeannie and I so excited and why we've been wanting to come here for the past ten years. The answer is the terracotta warriors of Xi'an. The first king to unite China roughly two thousand years ago wanted to have an army in the afterlife. In order to achieve this, he had an army of at least 8,000 soldiers made out of terracotta. This army was then buried in battle formations and forgotten ...