Xian

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An early morning wake up call greated us at 4.45am. A quick change and sorting of luggage and we were off to get our flight to Xian. The plane was absolutely crowded but it was a good flight. We arrived in Xian and were again blessed with the weather - about 20 degrees and fine (we haven't had a bad day yet). Xian is amazing. It used to be the capital city before Beijing took on that role. Now it is a city of 8 million people going full steam ahead - every where you look there is construction going on. We queried the layer of what we thought was smog covering the city but we were told by our local guide Durbin that it was actually mist coming down from the nearby mountains - we still have our doubts and many of us think it is a combination of mist and dust from all the construction.

Our first stop was the Little Wild Goose Pagoda which was home to monks in the past but is now an arts centre. It had lovely grounds and some really interesting features... we also got an introduction to Chinese calligraphy which was a good insight into this art. After lunch we went to the Shaanxi Museum which is home to the many relics found around the area (the area was once home to many of the dynasties and a lot of excavation has occured).

The highlight of the evening was the Dumpling Banquet. Here we had 20 different types of Chinese Dumpling but each dumpling was formed in the shape of what was inside the dumpling. For example the dumpling in the shape of a pig's head had pork inside. The dumplings were very nice but by the time you had them all you were full. We then watched a cultural show which involved some beautiful dancing and acrobatics.

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