DAY 11 - 29-01-2009 XIAN

Xian is one of the only cities in China where the ancient city walls are still visible. In fact they are complete. We walked half way round on top of the wall from the north gate to the south gate.

Some of the bricks had writting on, never found out what they said. Although when I was a lad hanging round Fence Houses we used to find bricks with Lumley written on so maybe its the name of the brickworks were they came from????????

You can look over the whole city on a clear day from the walls. Today was pretty hazy (from the pollution) so we couldn't see very far but created a good atmosphere for walking around.


HAZE

In Beijng the haze wasnt as prominant, probably due to the mental wind which probably blew it away. In Xian the winds not there so the pollution can build up.

Its a bit warmer in Xain - Dont need a hat to walk around in.

Went to the Muslim quarter again - walked down all the stall and sampled some of the street food. Had these stciks of sticky rice cakes covered in Jam and Nuts.

Theres these meat skewers taht look well nice being BBQ'ed on the back of pedal bikes. On asking what meat it was the fella didnt know ( Im guessing Cat) so we avoided that one.

Sophie barted with a woman for this Kimono dressing gown got her down from 180 J to 90 J.

Saw this dead old fella making these glass oxes (its the year of the Ox) but after watching him he was using this thick treacle. He rolled it in his filthy little hands and then blew it like you would glass. They looked canny mont like but these little kids were then eating these little sugary ox lightbulbs covered in his manky finger prints and filled with his dirty breathe -- NICE !!!!!

Caught the bus back to the hotel late pm. Experience: Worked out you had to put a 1 J note in a box at the front of the bus then hang on for dear life. The phrase sardines in a tin could be used. Anyway we managed it nee bother. John flet pretty pleased with our achievment.

Met Ling: Shes got 3 more train tickets to Shanghai - We're still flying. getting picked up at 6am tomoorow.

4 of us flying (1.5 hours)
6 going hard sleeper (16 hours)
7 going soft sleeper (13 hours)
Then all meet up in Shanghai

We go a day ahead of the rest (think we got the better deal in the end since I think we've seen most Xian has to offer)

Blue Adam eat the Cat Kebabs and has been vomming all afternoon.