Xi'an and the Terracotta Warriors

So when we wrote last we were just leaving to go on our train journey to Xi'an, well it lived up to our expectations of being gruelling and long!! After 3 hours my butt was starting to go numb and we still had 9 to go, the carriages were packed (reminded me of an average commute into London) and I couldn't believe it when we got on to see people standing in the aisles for 12 hours!!!! Plus there was no air con so it was hot and sticky good job I had my trusty travel fan.

Kris and I nodded off occasionally we were so relieved to see the train station at 9am, we got off and found our free lift to the hostel which was pre-arranged. The roads are manic to say the least and unfortunately we witnessed a casualty to the crazy roads when a woman who was crossing the main road got hit by a car in front of us, so we are paying extra attention crossing these roads!!!

On a brighter note our hostel in Xi'an is amazing, for £10 each per night it is like a hotel room a world away from our previous hostel. I think we are being spoilt though as it has won loads of hostel awards and you can see why. We have an ensuite as well which is brilliant and means I could do our first load of washing.

We spent yesterday evening learning how to make chinese dumplings a delicacy over here as our hostel had a dumpling party(see photo), we met loads of other travellers who were going on the same tour as us today. So we set off on our tour to see the Terracotta warriors today, it is definitely going to be up there as one of the most fascinating things we are going to see on this trip.

There were over 8000 statues found underground through x ray in the 1970s almost 40 years later and they have managed to uncover 2000 of them of which we saw today. This was done over 2000 years ago to protect the emperor in his tomb 1.5km away which is under a massive man made hill! We have attached a couple of photos, we even got to meet the guy who found the terracotta warriors when he was digging on his farmland in 1971 he came across a helmet and armour and told the government. The whole village got moved and the government made it into an excavation and tourist site, he was signing books in the souvenir shop!

We then got taken to lunch where Kris's chopstick skills are quickly improving before getting back to the hostel this evening.