During the ming dynasty this was the first place where all of the Chinese Territories were united.
A citidel by appearance, high walls and fortifications stretch 14 kilometres around the city centre. These walls are now just a tourist attraction and have been completely rebuilt. Regardless of this, they made an impressive first impression as we cycled along them at sunset.
This city in our opinion has the least western tourists, but with our guides we enjoyed some amazing food in the most questionable looking restaurants we have ever seen. Eating in dirty hallways and flicking fag butts onto the floor was a very surreal experience.
Before the meal we had the opportunity to help give out food to the many homeless people of Xian. Tony, the founder of the charity has had his battles in the 9 years he's been doing it, not because there aren't many people that need the help - but because the chinese will not address the issue and more so try to suppress it.
Our main attraction was going to see the Terracotta Warriors. More than 7000 life size terracotta army men dating back over 2000 years. Found accidently by a farmer digging a well, most of the pieces are still undiscovered due to the Chinese thinking that the tombs are cursed. Quite a few of these terracotta men are broken and in pieces from where the tombs had been raided hundreds of years before. This made the tour a little disappointing but even so we still enjoyed it.
Our final activity was an exciting visit (all 30 of the group) to the famous Chinese phenomenon - KTV! For those of you who don't know what this is (as we didn't before we came to china!) it is Chinese karaoke. Karaoke in England is seen as an odd thing - usually hosted in small local pubs, but in china it is beyond huge!
As we entered the private VIP booth that hosted a huge 50 inch TV, a mass of mirrors and comfy sofas we all cringed a little. We then got invited to go shopping for our alcohol, just like in a supermarket - vodka, rice wine and Chinese brandy all by the bottle for around £20 each. Needless to say we continued the night drinking profusely and singing our hearts out to Lady Gaga, Rhianna and Queen.
The bus journey and Oliver's severe hangover was not welcome the next morning as we travelled along some very high and scary mountain roads to our next destination - a "farm" in the mountains, an hour out of Xian.
I say farm in a loose term as it was more of a damp and cold concrete building with a lot of bugs and some very uncomfortable wooden beds - a sheet of cardboard for a mattress!?! The toilets here were typical Chinese toilets - squat with no door and 2 holes next to each other! Random as hell!
Even so we made the best of it and enjoyed some home cooked food and a little bonfire before heading off to bed.
We got up at 5am to make our way to the next and most exciting place yet - Shaolin! The home of Kung Fu and Buddhist monks.
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