Day 155

me and you lobbin the v's
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Another lie in today - wohoo luxury! we got up at around 1000am. (please understand  that we need these lie in's,i mean we are up till at least 1200 every night drinking so its not as thought we get to go to bed early like you lucky folk!)

The Israeli guy we have been traveling with for the past few days was set to leave today, (i wont insult him by trying to spell his name)and before he left, we gave him out contact details and in return he handed us a keyring with a safe travel prayer in hebrew on it. which was pretty cool.

staring at her hard, whilst rubbing his one exposed man boob.....

me and ronan lobbin the v's
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we had a breakfast cum lunch at around 1100 and got caught up watching a copy of a basketball film about a predominantly black team from texas during the time of Malcom X type thing, it was pretty good.

After that we checked out, put our bags in storage and as Ronan, Matt and Dan had all headed off to see the terracotta warriors Caz and i Had the Day to ourselves.

As we headed out into yet another abysmally raining cay we bought another umbrella (one each now) for $10 Yuan (theres 15 yuan to the pound) and we set out to hit the muslim Quarter for the markets and the famous Mosque.

early morning view from the train
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And hour and a half; maybe even two later, we were back at the bell tower having got completely lost in side streets and getting the weirdest looks so far - obviously no Tourists walk where we walked as we had people literally stopping bikes and cars to stare at us, whislt other, seemingly concerned for our safety waved us quickly through the dodgy alleyways we were traversing.

having knackered ourselves getting no where, we headed to Starbucks (i believe our first apart from the one in London since the trip started and i ordered the Cafe Mocha whilst Caz went with the signature hot chocolate.

Re freshed and reenergised we set out to the market, successfully this time.

we wondered around with a lot less hassle than we had had  in beijing and at our leisure bought some chopsticks, and some more artwork - Pete if you reading this mate, i picked something up for you and Kez as well. My one regret however is not picking up a knife i had manage to Haggle down to $100 yuan from $260 Yuan... don't reckon ill find another on like it now..hmmphh.

We gave the mosque a miss as it was $25 yuan in each, you couldn't go inside and it was still pissing it down.

Finding a super market, we stocked up on a few essentials for the train and went back to the hostel.

We quite Lazy ordered dinner at the Hostel again, and once again had Pizza... not very chinese- but very nice.

WE chilled until 2100 when we walked out the hostel with all our bags and after grabbing some Cash, Caz, Ronan and myself hopped on the now familiar 611 bus to the train station.

Once arrived we navigated out way round fairly quickly with a nice employee pointing out exactly where we had to go with out us asking him.

The station was, to be polite, busy. to be accurate. F*ckin rammed. and luckily for us we were the entertainment.  You get used to being stared out for standing out as the only westerner they may have seen all week, but three of us together provided a rare treat for the locals. A ginger guy- rare at the best of times, a Scruffily dressed girl (well for here at least as all the girls where hells and designer clothes all the time) and a 6ft6 guy who, even more so than i towered over the populous. normally it doesn't affect me, knowing that people stop and  stare at my whit skin and red hair, as we are walking down the street etc, sitting on the floor in a main reception area of a huge train station however is different, and the stare we were getting started to grate on me a little - Caz on the other hand got down right pissed off. Especially when one exceedingly fat local with his t-shirt pulled up to his armpits (as is the thing here in the heat- go figure) walked past staring at her hard, whilst rubbing his one exposed man boob.....

Eventually the time to board came as as we were walking the epic journey from the waiting room to the train a conversation struck up between us and a group of buddhist monks- the conversation however ended when ronan said he would got to Tibet "When its free"

In hindsight im not too sure that the train we got from Beijing to Xi'an was indeed a hardsleeper - the main reason was it was nothing like the hardsleeper we got on for this leg of the journey. our carriage, easily as long as one and a half carriages in the uk was lined on the far wall with bunk beds all the way alone easily 90 beds plus in total. Caz and i had two top bunks next to each other and Ronan had the one next door to me.

Theres a good reason why the top bunk is the cheapest -  theres is NO room. We have pictures for evidence, and as well as being restricted on breathing space there was no room for our bags - well no all of them anyway. Caz (being the shortest) ended using her big bag as a sort of pillow at the head of her bed, whilst i had my day sack and Cazs tube of artwork up by my head.Ronan was in a similar situation and if you'd have looked down the train when we were lying down you would have seen clearly three sets of feet sticking wayout of the allotted space... so with no space no aircon to speak off we were really comfortable. Oh an did i mention we were right next to the toilet, which not only made for an interrupted sleep with the slamming of the doors, but often a pungent one too- not that we had a choice when we could sleep, the Carriage attendant walked down the carriage at about 2300, turned out the lights and virtually ordered us to bed!!