Xi'an- Best City in China So Far

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After my night train from Datong to Xi'an, there was free pick up by the hostel at the station at 9am. Best hostel in China by the way. As we were getting off, I met an English girl called Liz who had been on the same train as me, and we were sharing a room at the hostel. We went and got clean (we were both pretty gross) and I did laundry as I was down to my last outfit, again. It took a fair while, as we were pretty dirty, well, I was, anyway. Liz is one of those girls who looks clean even when she's filthy, whereas I manage to look a mess, even when I've just showered. We went for a walk to find an antique market and have a look round. Xi'an has city walls which enclose the main centre, so everything is easy to find, and it's pretty hard to get lost. However, we got the bus to outside of the walls, and tried to find a temple as well. We found a temple, but not *the* temple. We had a look round an old market, which had a lot of tat, and old coins and stuff that we didn't really want to buy. We also ate hand pulled noodles, a Muslim food. It was cool to see the guy making noodles by hand, but they didn't taste spectacular or any different. I also think the chef may have burst my eardrum making them. Liz eats really fucking fast for such a small girl!!! We managed to find ourselves in the sheet-metal, industrial area of Xi'an (how? no clue.) and saw Kev, a Canadian we'd met at check in. He's from a town called Grimsby, haha, but in Ontario, not Lincolnshire. He also knows where North Bay is and was blonde, which reminded me of Cyndino and made me happy.

Me and Liz decided to treat ourselves to a bottle of Great Wall Red Wine, and collect our free beer we'd been given at check in. Liz hated it, so I got to drink it all myself (little help from Kev), and Kev taught us how to play a Chinese card game called Bu Yao, that I'm not very good at, and got progressively worse at with the wine's influence. I did win once, but didn't realise I'd won. We went to find a restaurant that Liz had been recommended, and walked FOREVER! We had no address, just instructions that were kind of like clues on some food related Mission Impossible sequel. (Starring Jamie Oliver would be my guess, Gordon Ramsey would be the bad guy, and Marco Pierre White the old good-guy mentor whose death is being avenged.) Anyway, we thought maybe we found it, and had some really good food because we were hungry, and more importantly, the buzz from the wine was wearing off so our patience was wearing a bit thin. The food was nice, and we struggled to order ice cubes, and stole some hot sauce which I am still carrying around. Afterwards we tried to get to the Bar Street that Kev had found on his walk that day. Xi'an's main roads are quite busy, so they have a lot of underground walkways and subways, with a huge multi-armed one in the middle of the city under the Bell Tower, and we all got a bit disorientated and spent far longer down there than necessary. Away from traffic though, so its kind of a good, safe place to be. We realised how expensive the drinks were, so went and bought two bottles of Chinese liquor, Baijo. Two bottles was only 60p, and it's 52% so it does the job. We all got hammered and talked to the waiter who was just lovely. Kev attempted some psycho-analysis on me and Liz and then walked Liz home cos she was drunk. (How NICE are Canadians??!! But then I suppose if you don't walk someone back in Canada, there's that chance they'll freeze to death, or walk over a frozen lake and die, but still, so polite.) Me and Kev carried on drinking for a while, and I had to sleep in a spare dorm bed in his room because I couldn't remember where my bed was. To be fair, it was my first night there, so I had no memory to guide me home. Poor pigeon skills there though, I apologise.

The cleaning lady got me the next day, and I stumbled back to my room at 9am. We had a new room-mate, Jacie, another Canadian (I love it!) who possibly had the best introduction to British girls that day. Liz had stumbled in the night before and passed out in her dress she's been wearing that night. I came in, half asleep at 9am, trying to tell them that I'd not known where my room was, and Liz sat straight up in bed, shouted, "I've slept in! I've got to go!" and grabbed her rucksack and ran out to go visit the Terracotta Warriors, still in last nights dress. Then I passed out in bed for the next few hours. (Well, seven.) Poor Jacie. That day just involved sleeping, eating and then a really great nap. Me and Liz tried to find the restaurant we'd gone to find last night, which was about 2 minutes further along the road than where we'd eaten last night. It was very unusual food, and a weird bread, noodle, meat mix that was pretty cool, and cold noodles which are really more-ish (MSG? I think so.) but not that nice. That night was October 1st, so we watched all the Beijing ceremony on TV, and felt bad for the Chinese kids having to smile all the time.

The next day, I decided to continue my good run of tourist attraction visits, and get to the Terracotta Warriors. The bus is really easy to find, but I started to be convinced that the Lonely Planet had dyslexia, and maybe I should just get on the 603 bus, instead of the 306. Glad I never, as thats the bus that goes to my hostel. Managed to get there eventually, and got pestered by a woman who wanted to be my guide, and couldn't understand why I didn't wanna pay for her to be my guide. Chinese people are very bad tourists, and I got crushed by them at some times, and had to bulldoze my way through the crowds. I'm pretty sure several old Chinese women got injured, but i don't care, I had rage. Probably best I did, as Jacie saw a load of men getting arrested for pickpocketing there the next day. The Warriors were okay. Better than I was expecting because I'd been expecting very little, and cool that people did that so long ago. But not worth the admission fee, which could have been halved if I'd tried to use my NUS card. I'm a twat. That night, we all shared our stories of the day, and then Liz and I decided to go out. We met some Chinese boys in a boy racer car who gave us a lift to a club and shared their whisky with us. We danced A LOT in this club, which had lots of glass and podiums. I love podiums. It was a pretty decent night.

The next day, I walked around with Kev and Jacie, and we found the Muslim markets. Jacie saw tons of stuff she went back to buy the next day, but I hate the haggling, and I stopped looking eventually, unless it was a food stall. Highlight has got to be going to the supermarket with Kev, who, because of his blonde hair, blue eyes, and all round ravishing good looks got amazing treatment. Free samples are a big thing in Chinese supermarkets, but the shop assistants were all over him trying to give him noodles and drinks and sushi and washing powder, lol. Him and Jacie had a good Canadian reminiscing session, which was all about peanut butter and apple slices (which I tried, and don't fully understand), turkey, cars with heaters to keep them warm at night, driving in Saskatchwa when its all white and fireworks. I think they both got a bit homesick, but it was interesting for me, cos it made me wonder if I can really handle a Canadian winter. I think Kev especially got homesick cos he was just in China waiting to leave, like me, rather than been in love with it like some people are.

That night, Liz and Kev both left, so me and Jacie had some beers and laughed a lot. Some monkey-boy from South London who was a dick tried to sit with us , and we shot him down, which was nice. Some guy walked in, who was puffing his chest out like a pigeon and I took the piss once he'd walked past, not realising there were four of his friends a little way behind him who all saw me do it, lol. These guys were German's and were working in Xi'an that month. I ended up going to a club with some of them. To get in the club you had to get a lift in a block of flats to the 7th floor which was the only floor that wasn't industrial. You had to show passports, which none of us had, so we had to have our bags searched, and only got in because one of the Chinese girls came and vouched for us. Very odd. The DJ was from England. One of the German guys, Dirch, bought my drinks, and when I was hungry (which was all night because I'd not had any tea) he took me to some place outside that had food. My only knowledge of German (apart from rathaus, which means town hall) is Ich Bin Schwimmen, or I am swimming. I'd been saying it all night, and Dirch's hotel (six stars!) had a pool so some of us decided to go back to the hotel and go swimming. However, the hotel guy was more sensible than us, and wouldn't let us go swimming at 3am, oddly enough. Dirch's suite was amazing, so me and the Chinese girl who had come with us decided to have a party. I took a bath (I'd been craving a bath for weeks), we ordered tons of room service, I watched BBC World News all night, and we made Dirch sleep on the couch. It was a pretty nice couch, so it was okay. I felt so much better the next day because my tailbone was still hurting from falling on the steps in Beijing, and I think a hot bath and a real bed sorted me out good and proper. Dirch's bosses were paying for his room, so he didn't care that we ordered enough food for about five peope, which was lucky because I doubt if he could have stopped us.

The following day, I hung out with Jacie and lazed around the hostel. She'd been to this mountain, Hua Shan and had a very strenuous day so we went back to the place I'd been with Liz and Kev and ordered pretty much the same stuff because it was easy and good. That night I was taking a night train up to Yan'an which is north of Xi'an. It would have made sense to visit there on my way to Xi'an, but I hadn't organised myself properly, so had to backtrack.

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