When I die I'd like my grave to be protected by thousands of clay soldiers

---

Ok, so after leaving Luoyang we headed for Xi'an and for the first time we couldn't actually check in until 12 so had some time to kill. Still, it seemed like a really cool hostel with communal areas and bar/restaurant area. Went out for a bit of a wander to the Bell and Drum towers in the centre of the city and to check out the muslim quarter which has a really nice feel to it apart from the number of holes that seem to have been dug at random (by the locals) in the middle of the road, couldn't think of any explanation for that but somehow didn't seem to out of the ordinary. James and Thom tried to learn a chinese drinking game in the evening which the owner of the restaurant found quite amusing but the language proved to be a bit of a stumbling block, in the end there were about five different people trying to explain the game and noone's quite sure if we got it right in the end.

The next day was a bit more interesting and we went off to see the Terracotta Warriors. Again, we decided on a public bus rather than the tour bus as the other stops on the tourist route seemed a bit dull. The idea seems a bit odd but aparantly the first emperor of China went a bit doo-lally and decided to protect himself in death by burying about six thousand clay warriors around his tomb in secret corridors. The warriors themselves were very impressive but I was kind of expecting more, I guess we saw about one thousand in their various states of resconstructedness with the explanation that the others were still being excavated and that they 'couldn't use a spade'. We didn't have time to check out any of the tombs afterwards but as mentioned I'm not sure there's too much to see there, one of them is definately just a mound of dirt.

Dinner that day was interesting, apparantly a muslim dish, we had two lumps of bread in a bowl that needed to be ripped to shreds before being taken away for the chef to pour stew on top of. It seems odd that the chef couldn't do all the work himself, or maybe I'm missing something. All that I know is it makes you a lot more hungry to have to prepare part of your food in a restaurant before you can start eating.

Up to the 29th of July now and my blog is slowly coming up to date (or maybe within 2 weeks). James got his results from his legal exams, a distinction no less so I'll bet he's a happy bunny. We headed off to the Great Mosque to celebrate, could have gone yesterday but thought it best to come today wearing trousers for a bit of added respect. It's a pretty weird place, pretty much laid out in the same way as every Chinese temple we had seen but with an obvious arabic influence. Pretty much wasted the rest of the day due to indecision, tiredness and illness (too much spicy food). Back to Beijing that evening on the overnight train...

In Beijing we went back to the market for a little looksy and so James could buy a couple of gifts before heading back to blighty. After that we headed to the Lama temple, not actually a temple for llamas but for the buddhists. It was more interesting than most of the temples we had visited because it was very colourful but more because it was a very active place with people burning incence and praying all over the shop. Still, I think we've seen too many temples of late as it all seemed quite samey. In the afternoon I went with Thom to the zoo to see some pandas, I think the first time I'd ever seen one and quite interested to see that they weren't black and white but more dirty yellow and black. I think there were six there but we only spotted four who all seemed to be completely baked in the heat. Saw some monkeys (even some mating baboons) but the lions and the tigers were notably absent from the zoo, all in all the zoo was a bit lacking in animals but at least I've seen a panda now...

---