Armies, walls and tanks

After another overnight train journey we arrived in Xi'an an ancient walled city. The temperature drop was ridiculous that I had to go out and buy warmer clothes it got down to 0 overnight and a maximum of 8 degrees. So COLD! Xian is hope to the terracotta warriors. Apparently a farmer was digging a well and stumbled upon pieces of these warriors. Sadly I thought that he dug a hole and found a massive cave full of these things which would have been more exciting. They are complete replicas of the army of Qin Shi Huang including horses. The warriors are so detailed even their faces and hands match each army member. They were built to protect Qin's tomb and each warrior took over a year to complete. Unfortunately time took its toll on the wooden/bamboo roof made to cover his warriors and the earth collapsed around them crushing a lot of them. The restored warriors are awesome though. They were originally painted but the paint fades after they were exposed to the air.

The next day we took a ride around the city walls all 15km of them. It was a unique way to see the city. Later that afternoon we boarded another overnight train to Beijing. Beijing was quite a laid back city, clean and didn't have the claustrophobic feel of Shanghai. Our first morning we visited Tiananmen square. The world largest public square and home to the Mausoleum of the Chairman himself, Mr Mao. Like all communist leaders he has been preserved. I still think embalmed people look so fake - almost like wax. Tiananmen square is a revered place for most Chinese and many make a pilgrimage here on their national holiday. For westerners though its hard to get the picture of a big tank rolling over the top of a protesting student.

In the afternoon we went to the Forbidden city. This place was home to many a Chinese emperor until communist rule came into place and the last emperor allied himself with the invading Japanese in WW2. In the past the city was home to the emperor, his 30 odd wives and thousands of Eunuchs. That night we saw the Shaolin monks show. These are Buddhist monks who study the art of Kung Fu. It was amazing! Fight scenes, monks breaking wood in half and metal in half on their heads... awesome!

The next day we took off to the Great Wall - Simatai section. This section is beautiful, not as well restored but the scenery and views are amazing. There was even a bit of snow around. We also were followed up the wall by an entourage of farmers wives who latched onto each of us and tried to be our guide/souvenir seller. On the way down we were able to catch a massive flying fox the last little bit down which was great fun.
We had our farewell banquet back in Beijing that night and ate a whole lot of Peking duck, drank a whole lot of beer and then proceeded to the Happy bar for a night of bad Karaoke. The next day I took off to Hong Kong and am now staying with Sarah and Matt in their apartment in Kowloon.