Xi'an

For the last part of our spring break everyone at one point or another made ​​it to the ancient city of Xi'an. One way was the 13 hour sleeper train. What an Experience! The train cars had smaller compartments with six bunks per compartment . I had the top bunk across from an elderly fellow, who not only snored loudly , but talked in his sleep. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it , he spoke Chinese so I could not understand his mutterings. I highly recommend this mode of transportation at least once in every traveler's life.  Once the capital of China and over 3,000 years old, the city of Xi'an is full of important historical finds and offers a journey to the Past. We nestled in at our hostel for the next three days. Five of us crammed into one room and we played a new game called "sneak Kristin into the hostel". It was a thrilling game, but I am pretty positive the employees knew I was staying there. We became friends with Lei Lei, a nice Chinese fellow that worked at the bar area of the hostel and spoke English very well.

We booked a tour through the hostel that took us to the Terracotta Warriors and the tomb of the emperor who had them made. Also we had in our small tour group  four British adventurers, Two Canadians, and a gentleman from France. We had a sassy Chinese  tour  guide, who was so much fun! We toured four pits of the warriors, viewing the excavation sites, one still being unearthed. Few of the warriors were found intact, the rest being left for the archaeologists with a weird puzzle fetish to put together. After carefully dusting away mountains of dirt, archaeologists are left with pieces of broken warriors. Another pit was the "head quarters" or where the warriors were made ​​and put together back in the day. The final pit  was were the archaeologists had pieced together many of the warriors and have then displayed. Seriously, any puzzle obsessed person would go nuts over this kind of work! 

Fun fact: the warriors were first discovered by a farmer who had been digging a well, and dug up pieces of clay pottery. The farmer that discovered the pottery was actually at the museum. He signed postcards for us and shook our hands. It was an interesting and neat end to the tour.

Final Pit

Once we had made our way through the final pit it was time to head back to the hotel, but not before eating lunch. When we were back at our hostel we found that Ben, one of the Canadians, was staying at the same hostel. He joined our group for cards and around the world ping pong. Then we all wandered out to the Islam influenced streets, over indulging on street food and having a merry time.

Sadly the following day we had to say good-bye to our new friend, who had to venture back home to Canada. Before leaving Ben left us with a final suggestion on what to do before we left this great city. We followed his suggestion and for our farewell to Xi'an we took a bike ride on top of the city wall. Definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip and the weather was gorgeous! It was a marvelous way to end an adventure.

For now, friends, I bid you farewell and hope everyone has a spectacular day/night! See you when I see you :) Love from China

Biking on the city wall