The honeymoon continues... Xi'an...

As promised, here's the first installment of the rest of our trip in China!

So, where were we? Shanghai... and an overnight train to Xi'an. Thankfully the trains in China were the best of all our overnight journeys. This may have had something to do with a certain wife saying she would not sleep in a 'hard' sleeper again (well were on honeymoon afterall!!!), so we had the luxury of 'soft sleepers'. Hurrah!

The train journey passed super quickly with a pretty good nights sleep, and we were able to check into our hostel early, shower, spruce and head out to explore Xi'an. To be fair we didn't get very far in the sweltering heat, and Starbucks may have been visited to cool off in the shadow of the Bell Tower. We crawled at a snails pace around the night market in the heat, heading back to the hostel for an early night before (what we were here for!) our trip to the Terracotta Warriors!

An hours drive out of Xi'an and we arrived in 'rip off central'. Of all the tourist traps we had visited on this trip, the Terracotta Warriors was the real winner. £1.50 for a Magnum ice cream????!!!! Shocking, I know. Thankfully after a 20 minute walk through numerous tacky souvenir alleys we were rewarded with our treasure, along with 10,000 other people! It was all elbows to get to the front and get the good view - luckily I'm small and nimble, and this wasn't a problem. And, wow, it was a good view when you did get to the front...

This was the third of the three pits which have been dug so far, and the biggest, which we saved until last. As you can see it is absolutely MASSIVE!!! It was completely awe inspiring, and once you were able to get past the mass scrabble of people you could really take in the enormity of it all...

My only disappointment was not being able to see the warriors up close, this was as close as you could get... behind glass...

...and this is how busy it was around these few warriors that you could get close to... (!)

...elbows out! How much more amazing would it have been if we could walk around next to and amongst a section of the warriors in the pits? Even if it was a reconstructed part. Niche market here I think?!

All in all though, a thoroughly amazing experience to go and see them... and we even brought home a little mini one for our mantlepiece! Hehe! A HUGE thank you to my Uncle Anthony who gave us this experience as a Wedding Present :)

Next stop Beijing!!!

x x x