Luoyang

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Today we got up and had our breakfast again in the hotel. We checked out but had the hotel hold our bags since we were going out for the day. We got a cab to the Longman Caves. It was a long hot walk from the cab drop off to the ticket booth. Vendors line the sidewalks to sell you things on the way in and out. You don't realize the size of the caves and statues until you see them for yourself. The time and energy it must have taken to carve all of these buddha's in the walls and create the statues was impressive. It was great to see the statues up close but the best view was from the other bank of the river. You can leave the side with the most caves, cross the bridge and tour the other side. After a lot more walking we made it back to the cab stand only to realize that I had forgotten the hotel card with the name and address. We were wearing our Christian's hotel water bottle lanyards and pointed to the them to get back to the hotel. Luckily the driver knew where it was. We picked up our bags and took a taxi to the high speed train station. The people at the hotel talked to the driver for us so that we would get to where were wanted to go. The train station was very modern. We noticed like in Beijing that no one would wait in line, they would just crowd up to the ticket window. The people behind us were practically stepping on our heals while we got our tickets. We were able to stash our luggage behind our seats since we sat at the back of one car. There were overhead bins also but they weren't that big. The ride to Xi'an was about an hour and was really smooth. We waited in the cab line outside of the train station and got a ride to Xi'an. The train station is about an hour drive from downtown Xi'an where we were staying. The cab driver couldn't find our hotel and kept stopping and jumping out of the cab to ask people walking down the street where it was. We finally found it, Citadines Xian Central. It was an old apartment complex turned hotel. The rooms were efficiency type rooms. The bed was rock hard, imagine a sheet over a blanket on a piece of plywood. The only reason I booked this place was because they had laundry facilities. Dave and I dropped off our stuff and went looking for food. We ended up eating at another Pizza Hut since most everything else we walked by had already turned into night clubs for the night. We went back to the hotel bought some laundry tokens, washed our weeks worth of dirty laundry and slept.

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Photos

Longmen Caves
Across the river from the main Longmen Caves