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Published: March 1st 2008
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Tuesday 26th February The rude awakening by the chinese train attendant repeated itself on this train. We moved at snails pace to get ourselves ready and we puzzled by the fact that no-one else seemed to be moving from their cabins. Next thing the train arrived in a station and the attendant came down and started dragging my bag out, turns out our stop wasn't the last stop and we were the only ones getting off so everyone had a look out of their cabins to see what was holding things up, us of course! so the lady pulled out my bag to speed things up and we were rushed off the train. We were met by Jack one of the hostel workers and he helped us get tickets for our next train and drove us back to the hostel. We were so delighted when we saw it, its so nice and comfy and homely. We settled in and had brekkie, porridge and toast (by god does this place know what travellers need!!). Once fed and watered we decided to go walk the city walls. oh dear! it was a long long long walk and because we were a
couple of metres into the air we couldn't just change our minds and had to walk all the way from the south gate to the north gate to get off, it took about 4 hours! We wondered at the start of the walk why there were signs telling people not to climb off the walk.....after about 2 hours we understood as we contemplated this very action just in order to get off the thing!! Once off we wandered around the streets for a while and found this cool market where all these chinese people were getting their food so we got some and sat in a park nearbv. On our way back to the hostel we got to see one of the "sights of china" we'd heard so much about.....the children (toddlers i suppose) all have slits in the arse of their pants so they can stop at any time or place and go to the loo, do their wees or poos whichever they want. So we got to see both due to the amount of children in the park! It was interesting to say the least, good way to save the world from pollution by nappies i suppose but
i wont be stepping in anything wet on the street for the rest of the trip. Xi'an is really beautiful, ita making me like china a lot more than i had done until now, there is a real authenticity about the chinese way of life here that isn't spoiled by city-ness which the last two stops had been. Also the people are so friendly. Im quite turning a corner in terms of liking china, now that im used to the differences in culture i quite like it. Back to the hostel anyway where we met some of the other guests and had a few drinks with them, i headed to bed at about 1am wreaked tired but the girls went on to the nightclub where they were on show as the only western people in the place, they tried to put them on a podium to dance and all! We're gonna feel seriously neglected once we get home, no-one taking photos of us or staring at us with fascination! boo hoo!!
Wednesday 27th February Today we went to see the terracotta warriors, we went with 2lads in the hostel,a younger swedish guy and an older canadian guy,
was good to share the taxi (even tho he tried to bring us to the wrong place!!) to save money. The warriors were amazing, we watched a little video beforehand explaining all about what they were and how they were built and the discovery of them so it made the actual pits very interesting, we'd heard mixed reviews about the place but were well impressed. Afterwards we spotted this place where chinese people were eating, it looked like their backyard and we werem't even sure for a while if they were a restaurant at all but they were and served us lovely bowls of noodles and soup which was v nice! it as v funny coz we all ordered drinks and then the lady wandered off to the local shop to buy them for us!! We headed back to the hostel then and had some food and chatted with a few, the hostel is so nice, i really love it ere, so friendly and warm and welcoming! We had planned on going out but a few came back and said it was crap so there was a guitar in the bar so myself and 2 of the other lads took
it in turns to play and we had a sing song til 4am! V good night!!
Thursday 28th February Today we didn't do much, i got up early & rang eddie while the girls slept in. We checked out and hung around the hostel for a while. We then headed downtown to the Muslim Quarter for a while where we browsed thro the maze of market stalls, i bought some small chinese paintings, nothing big will fit in the backpacks!! Back to the hostel then and got the luggage and headed to the train station on the local bus. The station was (if possible) worse than the other two we've frequented! It was packed with people staring and some even pointing and everyone packed into the place rushing around!! Mental!! We got on the train and when we got to our carraige there was a man in it asleep, it was 10pm so that meant bedtime for us too!
Note: i can't upload photos in china but ill do asap!
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