Hard Night, Rainy Day

We got a private bus to the train station, rather than brave the Beijing rush hour traffic. As we are leaving Beijing I must say that it was not nearly as crowded as I expected, and much greener too! The air wasn't black with pollution either, though I was feeling some shortness of breath earlier which I think is down to breathing the polluted air harder than usual from the 10.4 miles of walking (it has since gone off).

The yellow river. I think...

Beijing train station is apparently the biggest in the world, and this is supported by the fact that there is pretty much a full shopping centre inside the station, along with 13 different waiting rooms (unlucky for some!). We had dinner in a restaurant, I had sliced pork on rice, which was nice. We also went to the supermarket and got a few beers to ease the hardness of the "hard sleeper" train.

When we got to the train we were surprised by how high the highest bunks were! Luckily we were all assigned bottom or middle bunks, and it is about what I expected in terms of comfort and space. Lucky really, because someone said that it would just be planks of wood.

Simon showing his delight at the quarters

One of the people on the top started talking to us a little in English, so I asked him a question that has baffled me since the first day: what does "shun shun" mean? It was in every song that was on the radio in my taxi from the airport to the hotel. Unfortunately I didn't get my answer; confusion arose as the guy's name was actually Shun Shun, which means Panda Hero (surname means panda, forename means hero, they shouldn't really be read together). Obviously not what people were singing about!

I slept alright, though I got woken up by a load of shouting which seemed inexplicable. I ate the instant noodles I had brought for breakfast, and another person who spoke English and was very chatty kept us entertained until we reached Xi'an. His (English) name was Stephen, and he was 27, from the south, went to university in the north east, and now lives in Beijing working as a project manager for a software company.

Xi'an (pronounced zhee-an)is more like I expected Beijing to be than Beijing was! It seems a lot busier to walk about (though granted we were walking through the centre, on a Saturday!). We took a short minibus ride to our next hotel, one that William has never been to before, as the last one got such bad reviews! It seems really nice, and the prices start from 780rnb a night, which is £100! I should also mention that since there are 3 guys travelling alone and nobody paid for a single room, I am sharing with Alfredo here, and next time I will get a room to myself!

After a quick shower, we were off for a walk in the Muslim quarter. It was spitting, so I took my raincoat but it wasn't necessary at this point. Everyone was hungry by this time so the first thing we did upon arriving to the Muslim quarter was try out the local specialties: Chinese "hamburger" (Chinesey beef in something halfway between a pita bread and a steamed bun, and a bowl of soup with lamb and the same type of pitta/steamed bun bread cut up into cubes floating in it.

Definitely not the burger I'm used to

Is there such a thing as too much pita/steamed bun bread in your soup?

It was lovely. But the gods were not pleased by our lunch! It started to rain extremely hard. Apparently it doesn't rain that much in Xi'an, but I can't believe it, it was super torrential. We were walked to the gates of the Great Mosque by William, through a covered bazaar type street with literal river for a floor, maybe because they don't get much rain and the drainage wasn't correct, I don't know.

We had the option to look round the Great Mosque, but as with most Chinese temples etc, you can't really go inside, and it really wasn't the weather to be standing outside, so most of us decided to save it for another day.

The Muslim quarter, before the rain got serious

Del, Alfredo and I went for a coffee in the aforementioned bazaar street (which was super expensive!), and I managed to find a shop with a whole backroom filled with masks. There was a couple I liked, so I asked the price of one: 2800 rnb (£350 or so)... no. You can haggle down to 20-30%, but that starting price was too high! The other started at 750 rnb (£100) thankfully, and I talked her down to 200 rnb (£25-30), so I was happy.

Am I being stalked by creepy dolls or something?!

Del and I had almost run out of instant coffee, so we were looking for a supermarket. We went round a couple of malls just for a look (and because they were indoors!), and pretty much every shop was western! No supermarkets though, so we had to take to the streets. We were more than halfway back, and not a supermarket in sight. We were getting desperate, but suddenly there appeared what was essentially a corridor (the cashier, a mid teenage boy had to get off his chair to let us in) with a few sundry goods inside, including instant coffee sachets. We bought the lot, and left to go back to the hotel... and on the way back, saw at least 5 more, far more legitimate looking supermarkets!

The mall was tall, the people look small, I was afraid I would fall, there were... walls. Ok I'm out.

We had a few hours rest, and then just went to a bar across from the hotel for a snack and a couple of beers. Then suddenly, karaoke occurred! Some other westerners had requested it, and they were... not good. A Chinese man and woman who worked there also took turns, and were actually quite good, but they sung Chinese songs so passing proper judgement was hard! We went back to the hotel to sleep after a while, as tomorrow we would be setting off early for the Terracotta Warriors!

Editor's note:

Misty Pic of the Day 

While awaiting Chris' next blog post me and Misty and mum watched last night of the proms with our patriotic dinosaur.. I'm beginning to get the feeling Misty really doesn't like me taking photos of her...