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Published: November 14th 2014
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Hi Everyone,
So we arrived this morning in Xian, We had an early wake up from our french cabin mate on the train thinking arrival was at 07:20 so was up at 06:00 which was annoying as hell. After a lovely breakfast noodles (Im still now sick of them), we waited around chatting to this French lady from Bordeaux about where we were travelling to and where she had been all very civilised. Then a little late we arrived!!
Our first impression of Xian was, my quote "What a shit hole", I was dirty and shanty town looking, our pick up met us and we headed to the hostel, we had a few other on the mini bus but different hostels so no time for us to make some new friends.
So we arrived at our hostel Han Tang Inn, I thought it was a children's hostel at first as it is covered in pictures of people, but after a close inspection realised it was people who had stayed (no art graduates so far it seems). It is clean and friendly, has all the tours deals up and food looks reasonable at
first look. Vicky signed us up on a 'How to make dumpling lesson already (it free). We couldn't get into our room as it was before 1300 so we went for a walk to see the famous city walls.
We walking around till we finally found the South gate of the walls, we paid about £5 for both of our entrance. Once inside we started reading about the gate and then headed up to the top of the wall. So it is 13.42 km to walk the whole wall, as it was freezing we walked a quarter of it, and what we saw we are guessing was the same all around lol, its hard to say but its so impressive to see the wall and how it in captures the the whole city, however the wall is a wall and the same all the way around. (guess that meant we weren't overly impressed but the terra cotta army is the main reason for being here)
We headed back to the hostel to get set up, however we decided to stop off in a street restaurant to grab some lunch, it was so
good we both had the vegetable chow mien (as some one else was eating it and looked good and nothing was in english) and had dumplings, the plates were heaped full and the dumplings came in 5s each a good size, half way through we (me) ordered more dumplings (they were 4yen so less than 50p) it all came to the grand total £2.20 a bargain.
After working out the map we made it back to the hostel via a street stall selling dried banana slices and green raisins, we finally checked in and made it to our room, we are sharing with 2 other people in a dorm of 6 (still not met them but there stuff looks like girls stuff).
We headed down after a shower to book our terra cotta army tour and tomb of Emperor Jingdi, we then saw a deal for the Yangzi river so we have tried to get some info to book it up. (hate cruising lol)
We had our first western dinner in three weeks tonight, never had a better burger and Vick a spag bowl!!! We ended up talking to a couple,
one British one Hungarian who were nice and gave us some insight into our future travelling, they had been travelling for 3 years now!!!
At 20:00 we joined the massive group learning how to make dumplings, it was great fun and so easy, according to the instructor I'm a expert dough roller and Vick a master shaper and crimper!!! It was good socialising with everyone, met people from Holland, Germany, Korea, Ecuador and other places.
We then had a few beers watched a spooks and then sleep. Its been a massively long day!!
Chat soon everyone!! Love N&V X
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Sue Harris
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Great blog
Hi Neil and Vicky, it's really great hearing all about what you've been doing. 3 years travelling! !?? Please don't get any ideas in that direction from that couple you met ?. You can't have many episodes of Spooks left. Will put your blog on F B for you. Love you both. Look after each other. Love Mum xxx