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Published: October 9th 2008
We caught the train to Xian a few days ago. We had really enjoyed Beijing and visited the Forbidden city on our final day there. It was good but I much preferred the Great Wall!
Xian is a very old city that has been the capital of China during the Qin dynasty (I think!). It reminded me a bit of York with the old walls surrounding the centre. We ate out and wandered around the old market buying some warriors to send home. We had ample opportunity to practise our bartering skills; after threatening to walk away about 12 times we got them for about 25% of the original price - bargain!
We caught a mini-bus to see the Terracotta Warriors. They really were awesome - a whole army of them had been made over 2200 years ago and buried underground. So far they have only uncovered a small fraction of what they think may be there, and have yet to enter the Emperor's tomb that the army was built to protect.
We then ended up buying another 3 smaller warriors (posting them all home was going to be a bit pricey!)
Over the next couple of
days we visited Shaolin temple to watch the 3000+ students study Kung Fu. A guy we had met travelling on the Trans-Siberian (Chris) is going to study there now as well. At 6 foot 7 he'll be a bit taller than the other students. I couldn't believe how young some of the students were; 8 year old children sent to the school by their parents, no proper education really - just Kung Fu - all in the hope they'll be the next Jackie Chan / Jet Lee. We watched the students do a couple of shows - you wouldn't mess with any of them, they were so fast and agile, and there were hundreds of them! Chris I do not envy you!
We are off to Shanghai next - only 9 days until I go to the GP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Allan
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