The Stunning Adventures "Not all those who wander are lost." Tolkien

We took an overnight train-first class we should add--from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing.  There was nothing else available until a much later date, so we accepted our fate of having to have our own little compartment.  Darn.  In Beijing we went straight to the hostel we had stayed at before and immediately made arrangements to get to Xi'an.  We had learned that travel within China can be difficult, and you need to make arrangements from one city to the next, as soon as possible.  The young woman who was trying to help us, said right away that there were no tickets to Xi'an for two weeks.  We were dumbfounded.  What would we do.  This would put a small kink in our plans, to say the least.  She said she would call the station again for us to make sure.  We could tell that she had made this call at the behest of many travelers that day.  She made the call and after a short conversation, she looked up and said, "There are two hard sleepers!  You are very lucky! I think you should buy these tickets now!"  We did.  Awesome! After a 12 hour train ride, we sleepily made our way to our guesthouse.  We arrived at it's door around 6 am.
Xi'an was fantastic and we spent several days there but we'll get right to the highlights.  First of all, of course, the Terra Cotta Warriors are as incredible as we had imagined.  The day and the facilities were MUCH hotter than we had imagined...but so it goes.  We were taken around the extremely expansive grounds by a great little guide named Jia Jia.  The grounds are enormous.  There are 3 different halls housing the Terra Cotta Warriors. A couple of these were for excavation purposes; vast pits that are slowly being explored each evening after closing time.  Before entering the first hall, we were fortunate to meet the man who had discovered them.  In 1974 when he was digging a well, he discovered the resting place of the Terra Cotta Warriors.  He is now in his 80's and seems quite used to all of the attention. Apparently, he sits there signing books everyday. We saw a number of newly excavated warriors, many in broken pieces.  To this day, noone is sure how many warriors they will find or exactly how far-reaching underground they might be.  We wondered even, if some of the buildings for the museum, were built over some still buried warriors. It was an awe-inspring day to say the least.
Another one of our Xi'an highlights was meeting a group of Chinese men down an alley close to our hostel.  One evening, we were strolling by and came upon them all sitting on small stools in the street, drinking beer, laughing, and having a good ol' time.  That looked pretty good to us, so we pointed to their beer, and said "Pijuo?", to hint that we were interested in buying some.  We thought they might know where we could buy a couple as there were loads of little shops around, but most were selling buddhist items (buddhas, incense, books, religious jewelry, etc.).  One man shouted "PIJUO!", and jumped up, ran behind the counter of a nearby shop, and fished out a couple of beers for us.  We later realized this was from their own private stash.  We purchased the cold beverages, and immediately, they ushered us to sit down next to them. As soon as we were seated, cigarettes were offered, and then insisted for us to take.  This happened a number of times to the point where we just started putting them in our pockets and when we were offered another one, we would pull these out to show we didn't require yet another cigarette.  We sat and enjoyed our company even though they didn't speak English, nor we Chinese.  Soon, a lady came by who spoke a little English and translated a bit for all of us.  In a matter of minutes, we had a ring of about 20 people standing around us staring at what was going.  We finished our drinks and gestured that we had to be going, but not before we left, we were made to promise we would return in the next evening or two.  A couple of nights later we came back.  The men and a couple of ladies were all playing Mah Jong.  Upon seeing us, they all gave a rowdy round of "Hellos" and "Ni haos".  They took down the game of Mah Jong, which we protested, but they carried on anyway, and started grabbing seats and busying themselves with getting a table and setting up our little party.  The two of us kind of sat there a bit overwhelmed, smiling and nodding, wondering what was about to happen.  Pretty soon there was a table, covered in newspaper, topped with an assortment of snacks and then beer.  We were not allowed to pay for anything.  Soon, the daughter of the friendliest fellow showed up.  She spoke English well, and apparently he had phoned her to come hang out with all of us and be our translator.  She said that her father had told her about meeting us the other night, and he had said ,"We don't speak the same language, but we still understand eachother."  The party started to dissolve, and her father invited us to dinner.  We graciously accepted, and Shelley, her mom, dad, and their friend, Frock, along with the two of us, all jumped in taxis and went to the best Chinese meal we have ever had.  It was hot pot, which we have heard a lot about, but without knowing Chinese it makes it really difficult.  We all had our own little steaming pots and the table was covered with raw beef, mutton, shrimp, and a variety of vegetables.  We both felt so lucky to get this experience.  After dinner, we all hugged eachother.  Shelley's parents welcomed our western way of big hearty hugs.  It was lovely.  We all waved goodbye as we went our separate ways, and the two of us looked at eachother, and said "We don't even know his name!".  So wild.  The generosity was overwhelming.  We have been emailing with Shelley and plan to stay in contact with her and her family.