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Despite the lack of sunshine today it was nevertheless a sticky, hot day. Perhaps not the ideal kind of weather for a bit of hard work but that's what fate had in store for us...
Our day began with a short walk over to the South Gate of the Xi'an City Wall. We passed through the East Gate yesterday on our mammoth hike to the Big Goose Pagoda and noticed that for a fee, you can go right up on the wall. When we consulted the map it seemed that the South Gate would be closer for us today so that's where we went. We also read in the Rough Guide that you could hire bikes up on the wall and sure enough, just a few metres along the path we found a bike hire stand and for 40 Yuan we bagged ourselves a tandem of all things! Have you ever ridden a tandem? It's not quite as a easy as it looks but with a bit of trial and error and Glynn at the helm, we wobbled our way forwards.
The city wall is about 12 kilometers long and we were alloctaed 100 minutes to circumnavigate it. This seemed plenty of time and before long, we were having a wail of a time trying to stay upright and dodge the big potholes in the brickwork on the road. The wall is really wide - about 15 metres I would guess), so we had plenty of room to manoeuver around. It was a great way to see the city from up high but in the heat of the day we soon found ourselves wilting. It was only with a lot of grit determination that we made it back to the bike hire place in time and we were glad to see the back of that tandem in the end but we really did have a lot of fun riding around and being silly.
We then had a brief pitstop back at the hostel to get showered and changed before heading out again to explore the Muslim Quarter which consists of lots fo narrow streets lined with market stalls and more souvenirs than you can fit in your backpack! Glynn got himself some Chinese style clothes and in the process got to grips with the haggling process. He did really well and managed to barter stuff down by over 75%!
We're chillin gout in the hostel tonight as we have an early start tomorrow morning. We're off to see the world famous Terracotta Army although we've decided to see if we can save ourselves a barrel load of money by catching a bus there ourselves instead of paying the extortionate tour fees. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it ok!
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Debs
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Hi Jude You will be pleased to know we are in the middle of a heatwave here in Norwich - should get up to 29 degrees today. Looks like it could last most of next week too! News from the work front - Ann is no longer our boss - we report directly to Alan now. She has been moved to look after a project for about a year - Alan is not sure if she will then come back or not, so we will have to wait and see. I guess thanks go to you on this; don't know whether it would have happened without your intervention - so, thanks! Loving the journal - you could write a book when you get back I think! Debs