Xian, The capital of Ancient China

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Immy came out to Beijing with Oundle people on a school trip and one weekend they went to Xian, so I tagged along. I flew there on Hainan Airways on the Friday, we were staying in a pretty cool hostel. The city of Xian is one of China’s oldest cities and it actually still has quite a lot of authentic ancient Chinese buildings, and pretty much a full city wall (which we biked round on a tandem!) On Saturday we went on a tour to the Terracotta Warriors, which would have been really cool, but I wasn’t feeling too great…but they still looked impressive!
We also went walking up Hua Shan, which is a rather large and cool mountain. It was so beautiful, and it was all snowy! We took a cable car up 100metres and then everyone else walked the rest of the way (I stayed midway up the mountain and chatted to Chinese people, and listened to the new Soul Survivor album!
While we were there we also wandered round the Muslim quarter and the Great Mosque, a couple of markets, the Bell and Drum Tower. It was really good fun, and Immy experienced her first Chinese clubbing experience! On the way back to Beijing we took the sleeper train, which is a 12hour train ride. I was in a different cabin to Immy and Kent and everyone, with 4 Chinese men and a Chinese lady, all of which who snored way too loudly. Even though I was a bit ill over the weekend, it was a great weekend and it was really nice to have a break from Beijing.

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Photos

The drum tower
spot those golden arches

Comments

[Carol]

Happy New Year
I hope you had a good Christmas in Beijing with your family - I loved these photographs. Have a good 2007