Nov 11, 2012 - Me?? More Planning???

This plan of not planning and going with the flow went a little t!ts up when I was booking my trip this morning. My day was very relaxed in any case, I was tired and my shins still hurt so I decided to chill and catch up on my journal. However, being advised of train bookings from Xian, I ran to the ticket office at 11:30am (shins on fire) to book for 8:00pm that night and apparently the Chinese dont leave it that late... so a late booking meant I had to get a later train at 9:00pm with more stops and my 9 hours journey became 12 1/2 hours....

Nov 10, 2012 - You call that an Army

I managed to have a bit of a lay in today, up at 8:00am ready for the trip to see the Terracotta Army and it was amazing. Our guide was terrific too who spoke very good English and gave some great info about the army and its surrounding history. So much so that I cant remember any of it, so if your interested try Wikipedia lol. It was a great day though with a trip to the emperor's tomb which was annoyingly closed (but I didn't pay for that anyway) and then a trip to a village museum which was discovered 6000 years ago. Pretty cool actually...

Nov 9, 2012 - Cycling in Xian

My 12 hour train journey commenced yesterday and I spent the first hour trying to spark up a conversation with the Chinese guy in the bed opposite. Didn't work! I'm sure he just sat there listening while I played a single player game of charades just to say "My name is...". With that epic fail and the fact I left my map back in Beijing, I then proceeded to walk aimlessly around Xian until I faced the fact I needed my iPhone map. Very sad indeed, but hey £20 of data later (f'ing expensive, that's like 4 minutes) I was at my hostel and raring...

Oct 19, 2012 - Friday 19th October

This morning we went to the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum - WOW! Undoubtedly the highlight of the tour so far. The brief background is that a local farmer was digging for water in the 70's and came across some fragments of Terra Cottta. Taking them home, he dumped them by his front door. One of his neighbours was a janitor who worked at a museum in Xian. He took the fragments to work to show one of the people there. The rest is history! An amazingly large museum - well actually several large buildings sheltering different excavations. Too...

Oct 18, 2012 - Thursday 18th October

Up early for breakfast and to check out of the boat. Bus ride to to the top of one of the local mountains/hills to Ehling park where we wandered around looking at the locals doing their morning exercises. After that we went to the Flying Tigers Museum, these were international volunteer pilots who flew in WW2 to protect the area from the Japanese. They eventually became an official force. Then a local lunch which was far to spicy for me! The off to Xian by plane. Another monstrous city with its usual pollution, traffic jams and a huge...

Oct 3, 2012 - Xi'an and Suzhou - Terracotta Warriors!!

After a 2.5 hour plane ride with China Southern Airways we were in Xi’an. Xi’an is a small city but one of the oldest cities in China. Still with high rise buildings, lots of shops and hotels though. The following morning we went for a walk around the city wall which covers the whole perimeter of the city it is 13.7km but due to time restraints we didn’t get all the way round. There wasn’t too much to look at but we had 2 Chinese people latch onto us a boyfriend and girlfriend – Ooo la la . The girl was slightly obsessed with me she was...

Oct 2, 2012 - Xi'an by number

Capitol of six to thirteen dynasties, depending on the informant, Xi’an is now a budding megalopolis of 7.4 million. Called Chang’an at the time, meaning Perpetual Peace, the city was the eastern terminus of the 7000+ km long Silk Road. Peace enabled trade, and trade brought wealth to the seat of power. The present name, Xi’an, means Western Peace. We stayed outside the inner walls in the Xi’an High-Tech Development Area. Our hotel, the Zuo You Ke, was built of 420,000 hand-laid bricks and is full of soft, accessible modern art. Breakfast...

Oct 1, 2012 - first emperor, next action hero?

Previously I’ve mentioned the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di. You may remember him as the same despotic overachiever who unified China, commissioned the Great Wall, standardized language, writing, weights, and measures, and compelled 700,000 people to work on the Terracotta Warriors and his mausoleum so he would have the military power to continue his rule in death. He probably also retained the movie rights. After workers buried the army and concealed the tomb, Shi Huang Di had them all killed. All of them? I asked our guide. All of...

Oct 1, 2012 - Xian ... jumelée avec la ville de Québec

Xi'an Notre vol avec la compagnie aérienne Air China se déroule comme prévu en deux heures. Nous sommes le 1er octobre. Un autobus assure la navette d'une durée d'une heure entre l'aéroport et le centre de Xi'an. À notre sortie de l'autobus, des guides nous attendent pour vendre des tours dans la ville. On se laisse influencer et acceptons le forfait d'une journée pour la visite du musée des soldats enterrés en terre cuite, le mausolée de l'Empereur et le musée de Ban Po (artéfacts). Cette visite se fera dès le lendemain matin puisque nous...

Aug 22, 2012 - Xian

I have now made my way from Beijing to Xian in the sleeper car of an overnight train. Xian is a lovely city that does a fabulous job of blending China’s past and present. It is one of the few cities in the world that still has its medieval wall completely intact—including the moat that surrounds it. The skyline outside of the old city, however, is dotted with modern skyscrapers and a seemingly endless number of new construction sites. Throw in the many beautiful parks sprinkled throughout the city and you really have something. In fact, as...

Aug 22, 2012 - Modern China

I’ve only been in China 6 days, but I’ve already formed some definite impressions. China is clearly hurdling into the 21st century at breakneck speed. On the train I was speaking with a British couple that had backpacked here in 1984. At that time the streets of the big cities were clogged with bicycles and only an occasional car. There were virtually no hotels for independent travelers and locals mobbed Western tourists as a curiosity. Based on what I’ve seen in Beijing and Xian and even while traveling on the train, times have certainly...

Aug 20, 2012 - Xi'an, - Day 8

We arrived in Xian train station at 8am after a 12-hour sleeper train journey. It was a pleasant surprise! We had our own personal cabin, complete with 2 double bunks, quilts, pillows and a small table with a kettle and silver tray! The space was quite clean and petite, but once again, let down by the Chinese style toilets - they were GROSS! No sooner had the train started its journey, the toilet was covered in poo. Nice. Nothing unusual there. Anyway, enough about that.... We enjoyed the end of a game of Canasta and read our books before...