Xi'an

After arriving in Xi'an around midday, Jackie took us on a walk around the busy city. We headed to the Muslim Quarter, which had lots of little shops & food places. I enjoyed some yum spicy bread & lamb for lunch, then we wandered around the surrounding side streets, full of locals. A few of us were in dire need of a massage after the desert, so we went to a Massage by the Blind place. Was excellent, although my massuese could DEFINATELY see. Ah well! That night, we went to Bar Street which was dead being a Monday. Eachplace we walked past the spruikers would yell at us to come in. We had drinks & snacks at a few places. First a cute cafe, followed by a bar with swinging chairs! All was good until 2 young Chinese 'musicians' came on stage. One guy had a guitar with stickers of baby Disney characters on it, the other had an electric drum kit. They absolutely destroyed 'Knockin on Heaven's Door' with the drummer talking on his mobile halfway thru! It was too loud & terrible, so we went to a cosy tribal style cafe, before calling it a night. I woke up early the next day to see the locals, mostly elderly, out exercising in the park. It ranged from the traditional to the bizarre... tai chi, sword exercises, banging hands on chests, massaging ears, walking around backwards, shouting, push ups with no shirt, banging into a tree over & over, clapping, line dancing to techno music... very entertaining. It was nice walking throught the pretty gardens. A garbage truck passed us, palaying "My Heart Will Go On." I then met up with the whole group to visit the famous Terracotta Warriors. We watched a movie first on 360 degree screens, telling us all about the history of the site. The 6000+ terracotta warriors were built over 2000 yrs ago by an emporer who wanted them in his tomb for afterlife protection. It took over 40 yrs & 720 000 people to build them all, but only 1 year after he died the tomb was invaded & destroyed. Kinda funny. Anyway, the broken relics were found about 30yrs ago, and they have been restored. Its pretty impressive seeing the 2000 soldiers on display in the main pit, but after a while it got a little boring (there are only so many different photos you can get!). Headed back into Xi'an and explored Culture Street (lots of souvenier shops). We rode bicycles on top of the wall which surrounds the city- 14km all up! Was completely flat though, so fairly easy. Was cool to see the city below. Some of the apartment blocks were very derelict. We watched the 'sunset'- basically the sun disappearing into the pollution haze. That night we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet (what a pig!). In the morning I had a little wander around with another girl. We took a wrong turn and ended up in the local food market- first was fresh seafood & nuts, but as we got further in we found raw meat... including whole dog & sheep carcasses- so disgusting! We got out of there, and bought some dumplings, the boarded yet another overnight train, this time heading for Chengdu.