Nick was once again travelling with us, however, as we thought we had been able to get rid of him, we had already booked our train tickets. By the time it came to book his ticket, there were no sleepers left on our train so it meant that he was left with a seat for the overnight journey.
Lauren and I had a very comfortable compartment, complete with television screen and disposable slippers. However, the television screen turned out to be a thorn in my side as one of the Chinese gentleman in the compartment left his on all night while he slept happily, the light kept me awake. We were also very near to the washroom, for those who have been to China, the spitting sound is quite loud so you can only imagine what we had to endure. However, I can't really complain, Nick didn't have a very comfortable journey sitting in a seat with his head on a table and apparently looked quite the sight leaving the station.
We arrived at the train station where we had booked a transfer to the hostel. Nick was one train behind us and the transfer didn't want to wait the 10 minutes for his train. Anyway, no good deed goes unpunished, I suggested that Lauren wait for Nick and I go on ahead with all of our stuff. Heavily laden with gear, I had to cross very busy intersections to another hostel where the car was parked. Once at the hostel, our packs suddenly disappeared into a waiting car.... in between the hostel was panicked over the fact that I was missing another person. So, trying to phone Lauren and explain that it was okay to leave without her monopolised about half an hour, by which time, the other people waiting in the car were hating me.
The hostel looked more like a hotel but had very very hard beds. Our first priority was to update the blog, this took a very long time and once we were done, we set off to explore Xian. We walked to the Drum and Bell Tower before I dragged Lauren and Nick to the Muslim Quarter, through many dried fruit shops and through many stalls selling the exact same stuff. It would have been nice to stop and browse but the problem is that once you stop to look at something, it is very difficult to get away. I didn't even buy a magnet as it was just too difficult.
The walk back to the hostel was very pretty. Xian is a much slower pace than Beijing, lots of bright lights, kites being flown (yes, I bought one) and very importantly for Lauren - plenty of Starbucks.
Next day we set off for the Terracotta Soldiers. We jumped on a local bus which was complete with MTV. Xian is very expensive for tourists and cost us a fortune to get into the soldiers but it was well worth it. The pit is an amazing sight and I have plenty of photos of the soldiers and horses and chariots. The visit didn't last very long and we made a stop at Huanqing Pools on the way back into Xian. The pools were very pretty. By now we are very aware of where we are getting conned so when we were approached to be driven around as the walk would be 2 hours, we declined in favour of walking, which took half and hour. Many more photos later, we left and decided to take a cable car to Mount Lu..... after the slowest cable car ride ever, we were at the top, and as it seems to work in the tourist spots, they wanted more cash for the National Park. We declined and took the painful journey back down.
We jumped onto a different bus number on the way home. The only communication from the conductor on the bus as we were standing on the side of the road was her yelling out of the window, Xian train station, 5 Yuan. It seemed reasonable so we jumped on, though we did get nervous, it was a different route through run down areas and very bumpy. Eventually we were back at the train station.
Now Lauren didn't want me to write this part of the blog on account of the fact I may not have been truthful. We were all walking together, I was following Nick, next minute, a drunk Chinese man cut me off and wouldn't let me pass him. If I moved left, he did, if I moved right, so did he - it was unnerving. I looked longingly at Nick to come and save me as he had done so horse riding BUT no, he stood there taking photos to record the event for posterity for my grandchildren. Eventually Lauren came back to help me but the drunk man did follow us for a bit. Nick lost hero his hero status and thinks because I threw a little bit of water at him, we are fair and square.
Lunch consisted of another Pizza Hut meal.... I am so tired of pizza but very grateful for the American franchises. It makes a nice break from rice. Nick met up with a friend of his and Lauren and I went off to spend some money. I have quite enjoyed the bargaining and managed to get 2 pashminas for 40YUAN versus the 210 YUAN she wanted to charge us originally.
Next day was set aside for a walk on the city walls and a trip to the Big Goose Pagoda. Two very uninteresting sights. We walked to the top of the Pagoda and took some smoggy photos of Xian, heading back down for a nice cuppa which didn't pan out too well either. I am not sure what tea we actually bought, it was very expensive and quite vile. Jumping back into another taxi, we headed over to walk the city walls. Very unimpressive after the Great Wall of China, we lasted about 40 minutes before we escaped, and headed down through a market back towards the hostel. We decided to spend the afternoon reading and catching up with admin before heading to the train station to catch a train to Shanghai.
Comment by Lauren.....Mmmm - when Sue talks about how she was accosted by a Chinese man at
the train station, she neglected to mention how he almost head butted
to her trying to stare into her blue eyes and how he was singing to
her, trying to get and keep her attention. I must admit if I'd had my
camera handy (and hadn't been trying to save Sue) it would have been me
taking the photo's.
