The Big Trip...

hey everyone

So we left Shanghai in the middle of the afternoon for Nanjing. This was a 2 hour train journey that passed really quickly whichwas good. Nanjing is a lot smaller than Shanghai and is less commerical but it is the capital of the south of China. We arrived into Nanjing around 5pm , checked into the hotel and headed out for dinner. We had a lovely banquet again (the food is amazing!) and then wandered around the night market before having a drink in a very posh hotel (for only 2 pounds ) and tehn having an early night.

The follwing day we went to the Mausoleum of the last emperor of China which was actually really intersting. It was set in a beautiful park and we spent aroud 3 hours there, climbing pagodas and learning about the history of China, especially the revolutions and the fall of the Emperors.

After this, we had a quick lunch of noodles and went back to the hotel to get ready for a very intersting journey to Xi'an. This was a 12 hour sleeper train that left at 5pm, arring in at 5am the follwing day. Well, this train was hysterical..beds were 3 bunks high and crammed together like sardines...in fact the entire train held 1500 people!! We were all exhausted so we settled into bed at 9pm (i scored a bottom bunk!) even though lights did not go out until 10 pm. Around 9:45 a chinese lady came around selling spinning toys that hummed happy birthday..so bizzare and it completely cracked me up!! The worst thing about teh journey was the smell of smoke...outside they are burning their crops for fertiliser and the smoke fills the train..well, it can;t be great for global warming!

We arrived at 6:30am (after being woken up at 4am!!!) and headed for our hotel in Xi'an. Its a lovely hotel, in a great location right in the center of the city. Today we just wandered around the market and went for a traditional meal of chinese dumplings!

Tonight we are going to muslim stret for dinner and some late night shopping, and tehn tomrorow we are seeing the sights of the city before heading to the Terracotta warriers the day after.

Take care

Danielle xxx