Day 9

Well another day...another ancient treasure...terracotta warriors, one of the big ones on my list. They were great, you can't help but have respect for the work...or fanaticism that went into this army. Chris and I also went to visit the tomb of Emperor Qinshihuang. The army was constructed for this emperor, to maintain his rule in the after-life...some people just go a little to far!

Went to the train ticket office to buy a ticket out of Xian, for the 29th. Skimming through my lonely planet in the line I made a decision 3 minutes before I bought the ticket. So next stop is Sichuan (Chengdu)....and for those of you who know, yes that's right, it's Panda bear time....well almost , as soon as we get Hau Shan done.

At this point we were a group of about 7. Went to the muslim Quarter of Xian for supper , excellent food, awesome atmosphere, night market selling all sorts of snacks and supplies and restaurants selling a million varieties of spicy foods (and when I say spicy I mean "put the toilet roll in the freezer" kind of spicy). Anyway Xian is awesome at night, went to south gate, where hundreds of people are playing street gambling games (gambling for smokes and beer, etc) and drummers are going mad on the roads as masses form what seems like a giant snake, running around the square, and then suddenly the off key sounds of street Karaoke hit you, but before you can run you are being offered a "really" rollex for only 50 yaun, in one of the hundreds of tiny parks surrounding the Xian City wall....mmmhhh I suppose simply put, life is good in Xian.