21.10.11
I woke up early to wave everyone who wasn’t on the extension goodbye. It was really sad to see everyone go after spending such a memorable time with them all. Angela is planning a reunion for us all for next September to do the West Highland Way in Scotland. It’s 92 miles and we’ll have the option to climb Ben Nevis too. Hell yes!
When everyone left it was just eight of us remaining – Richard, Sarah, Judy, Myf, Sam, Annette, Dave and me.
We were given a fairly free day to roam around Beijing so we decided to take a taxi to the silk market and take a look around the shops. Getting a taxi wasn’t too much of a problem; we just stuck our hand out and flagged one down. The traffic was totally manic, I’ve never seen anything like it!
The rules are…well, there are no rules. Cars just kriss cross each other and zebra crossings mean nothing; you really need to keep your wits about you.
We arrived at what looked like the previous days Pearl Market, which reminds me that I forgot to write about that part so here are my comments:
It sucked! You get hassled constantly and at one point this girl was completely in my face, basically shouting at me to buy whatever she was selling whilst grabbing and pulling me around. At that point after only about ten minutes I just had to get out of there as it felt a bit too overwhelming for me. Chinese people really need to learn how to sell to westerners.
So back to the 21st again. We had some lunch first at a French bakery outside of the market which was nice. It was quite strange that the woman serving us had earphones in to presumably listen to her own music though. After eating we had a walk around the Silk Market. I have to say that although it was a similar set up to the Pearl Market, there was a lot less hassle and I even bought a fleece since my light packing kind of backfired!
We had to be back at the hotel for 6pm to catch a train to Xi’an so we started to leave at around 3:30pm because of the traffic. Catching a taxi back proved to be a lot more difficult as no one wanted to stop for us. Eventually, after about twenty minutes we managed to flag a taxi down but because we were travelling in a large group we needed a second car which proved to be a lot more difficult to get as no one seemed to want to take us out of the area. Luckily we all made it back to the hotel with about an hour to spare.
The station was crowded with thousands upon thousands of passengers. There were a lot of people dragging heavy bags of crops. Walking briskly up the platform to our carriage, I looked up to the sky and noticed the heavily polluted pink coloured sky. It’s hard to imagine a place to engulfed by pollution but you can see why people cover their noses and mouths.
We waved goodbye to the lovely Martin and entered the train. I’m not sure how surprised I was to see the size of the cabins but having four adults squished into a tiny room initially seemed very snug! The cabins consisted of two bunks to either side and a small table by the window. Dave, Sarah, Richard and I shared one room and Sam, Annette, Judy and Myf were in another just two cabins down.
The journey was a total of twelve hours (from 8pm-8am) but having beds made the ride so much better. I think I only stayed awake for the first two hours, except for a short break in the middle when I needed the loo. It was a really inconvenient time because the trained had stopped for what seemed like an hour and whilst the train isn’t in motion you can’t use the toilets as there won’t be a flush. I slept the rest of the way as I was coming down with a cold and feeling pretty rough. I must have knocked out completely because all of our group had come into our cabin at one point and I didn’t wake up at all!
One we arrived we were greeted by a guy called Alex. My first impression of this fashionable guy was a very positive one. He was so sweet! Like Sam said ‘You just want to take him shopping with you’.
As soon as we left the train station I noticed a massive change from Beijing. The first thought I had was ‘Now this is what I imagined China to look like!’ There was a greyish/black stone wall which surrounded the city of Xi’an. All of the buildings had arched roof edges and the city had a nice feeling about it. We were taken to get some breakfast first and were led to a beautiful hotel (I forgot the name unfortunately) but it was just around the corner from the train station. This hotel teased us enormously because we were only booked to have breakfast there. We were gutted but at the same time it was extremely welcome and that point. Special mention for the bathrooms with a rating of 10/10! (inside joke).
The Terracotta Warriors
First impressions? OH.MY.GOD
The site was unbelievable! The first and main pit contained approximately 6000 out of the 8000 + stone warriors. I have seen them on tv but nothing really prepared me for the real thing. It was just so unreal! Thousands of the warriors and horses had been remade after having been destroyed; the scientists must have been pretty amazing at puzzles to be able to piece these babies together again. A lot of the broken terracotta bodies could still be seen lying around half unearthed in the pit. It’s just incredible to think that 8000 warriors had been created, fully painted and each with its own unique face. In total we visited three pits. Alex told us that underneath where we were standing outside, there was a fourth pit however at the moment the Chinese government had no intention to excavate it.
After lunch we were taken to a mosque in Xi’an. To get there we had to walk through a buzzing market place. It was brilliant! That was the kind of market that we should have been taken to in Beijing, not the crappy Pearl Market which had absolutely no character to it. This market was heaving with life. Crowded and somewhat dangerous; scooters speeding past on either side of you and pretty stalls decorated the street selling crafts and unusual foods. I could have spent many hours there.
Me posing as a warrior. A very happy warrior.
Unfortunately, this is where my journal comes to an end. I didn’t finish writing when we arrived at Chengdu but I will still be sharing my photos of my time at the Panda breeding centre with you all in my next blog.
Tags: army, beijing, charity challenge, china, pearl market, terracotta warriors, traffic, train, xi'an
