Xi'an (again!)

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We arrived in Xi'an in the morning and knowing that we were on a deadline to see the Terracotta Army we booked into a hostel near the train station rather than in town as we were so easily distracted last time. We literally dumped our bags, showered and got on the first bus out. We managed to find it no problem and after fighting our way through the crowd of people asking if we wanted a guide we got our tickets and entered. There are 3 pits that you can look at as well as a small museum and cinema showing the history of the warriors. The museum was ok, the cinema awful and the first 2 pits pretty good. They mainly had remains and a lot of excavating was still going on. However, the final pit was very impressive. It is hard to describe but from the pictures you can gage some sort of size, the detail of the life size warriors is amazing and the fact that no 2 warriors are alike is startling. The trouble is...because we had heard so many good things about the warriors and because we came back halfway across China to see it I left almost a little bit underwhelmed by it all. It definitely was not as good as the Great Wall as a few people have said (should have known they were clueless when they said they were from Stoke!). There was only really one good pit and you can't get close enough (understandably so) to really appreciate the detail.Overall it was really good, just not excellent.

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When we got the bus back to Xi'an we went into a restaraunt to have some food. It was a proper chain restaraunt, not some dive of a place. Anyhow, halfway through the meal Noddy stopped with a look of shock on his face, I turned around and there was a man on a a motorbike riding through the restaraunt, out through the kitchen and out back, just for a shortcut. That is China for you! After we had our food and overcame the shock we grabbed our backs and headed for the train station.