Xi'an: warriors and walls

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Finally im on the train to xian, the beds are ofcourse fine if you are chinese but lanky white dudes dont fare so well so its night of my feet hanging over the edge into the aisle. arriving in xian and its not as smoggy as i was told to expect, i was met with blue skies and sunshine however it did live up to its reputation of being a very dirty city much more so than beijing in my opinion. here for just the one day and im staying in aparently the oldest hostel in xian and to be fair its pritty cool but full of germans.

getting the bus to the warriors was pritty easy as kerry and si had done it a couple days before and made all the mistakes so i didnt have too, it was like an hour journy for 7rmb and 90 entrance fee, saved a pritty penny on tours of like 200. the warriors themselves were very impressive and the place was pritty cool, apart from the huge tourist strip made specifically to strip you of all your cash, but it all seemed so sanitised theres no charm about the place. im not sure what i was expecting but it didnt really live up to any preconceptions i had held.

went for a night out in xian also as i met a group of english girls, a couple dutch guys and an irishman. was actually a pritty good night some mafia dude who wouldnt let us take pictures of him was tattooed up and ordering budwiesers by the 50 was letting most of the guys drink for free and just saying gambye (cheers) every couple of mins when he wanted to down it and open another. its fair to say we got a tad drunk so when this guy got up on stage after signing some autographs, famous as hell we guessed, i couldnt resist i had to be up there with him so when his security said no i was pritty damn gutted, only he loved the beard i recon so he grabed my arm and pulled me up, official back up dancer right here! when he was done we just went and finally paid for some drinks before a couple peolpe heading off me and patrick the irishman decided to kiss the warrior statue the bar had by the exit before running away, although nobody was chasing us, lucky for us the hostel was 2mins walk so we just had to bang on the locked door and wait for this sleeping old guy to wake up and let us in, sorry dude.

day 2 was spent on the city walls surrounding the city, i would have rented a bike and gone round in just over an hour but theres no way im trusting them with my passport or like 200yuan so i decided to walk it, took me alll day and to be honest yeah its cool and you get to see some sights and stuff but theres only so much wall and skyscraper you can take, xian doesnt look overly different from parts you can stubble upon in beijing apart from this wall and the fact theres more mc donalds which is an achievment considering the amount there is in beijing.

the train to chengdu was at 8 so spent some time chilling, not making plans, not making and decisions on where im staying or what im going to do, it all works out in the end...trust me.

ASH xx

ps: most of the photos have the wrong captions for some unknown reason?!?

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