Well, we’re here and my trousers have finally dried! All the green food colouring came out too!
We had a flight transfer in Hong Kong which was really fun, probably not as exciting as the old ‘fly between the buildings’ airport but it was awesome enough for us!
We slept for most of the first day and met our intrepid group and they’re all great. They’re mainly Australians but there are a couple of Swiss guys and another couple from London too. Our tour leader, Owen, is also really nice but certainly a man on a mission! There’s no stopping for photos on the organised tours, I managed to sneak a few in though!
Shanghai is lovely and MASSIVE (16.7 million people) but is basically just a big city with a lot of sky scrapers. Good food though.
On Tuesday we took the sleeper train to Xi’an. We were all in hard bunk beds in an open carriage with about 60 beds in. It was great fun, I didn’t get too much sleep though!
Xi’an is a totally different city. It’s got loads of character and lots of ancient chinese buildings, markets and city walls. Our tour guide took us on a very high speed and long cycling tour around the city. Unfortunately my bike didn’t fit at all and the gears were broken so I had to cycle all around the city looking like Easy Rider with the guide (on a very nice looking racing hybrid bike!) shouting ‘it’s ok, the cars will stop for you’. Most of them did.
Today we went to see the terra-cotta warriors with a different, much more relaxed, guide called Michael. He’s by far the best guide ever, I might have even learnt something!
