The Lone Wolf Travels Part 1 - Xi'an

Look at that title, you know you love it.

Xi'an, the root of history in China. I knew I was going to have a lovely time here when the girl who worked in the hostel told me I was beautiful, despite being sniffly and dishevelled from a day of travelling and being surrounded by Chinese people in a small space. My room is frickin' freezing, but lovely and, hey, the heating works so I'm sure I'll live [if there are no more posts after this one, disregard that last statement].

My Room

The day I arrived it was 9 o'clock before I got settled and I was far too tired to even move so I went straight to sleep after having booked my tour to the 兵马俑 【bingmayong，Terracotta Warriors 】. I woke up with a full cold but determined nonetheless [seriously I've been ill like 7 times since I got to China]. Looking probably as ill as I felt, I set out with my guide and, obviously, two handsome German guys. They were nice, good German humour, and the guide was lovely and gave us many a history lesson as well as a lesson on 西安话【xi'an hua, Xi'an dialect】which was just far too difficult and will never be remembered nor used by myself.

The Warriors themselves were interesting, but not overwhelming - they are just statues after all. The whole place is really interesting though, and I definitely recommend going, especially with a tour guide, otherwise all you're gonna see is a lot of holes in the ground. After that we were treated to some local food, which was very nice, and were then taken home where I took a nap after a long morning. I hope you guys are enjoying the story of my life - I'll try and intersperse it with some pictures.

Saving up my shopping and the famous Muslim Quarter for day 2, I decided to take an evening ramble to a park that I found on my map, not too far from the hostel. It turned out to be beautiful - Dalian is a very modern city with no ancient sites or generally picturesque locations just lying about, so I'm probably exaggerating slightly, but it was still nice. Afterwards, I went to a local restaurant, instead of eating at the hostel like a real 外国人【waiguoren, foreigner, she says sitting at the bar using the free Wifi. After confirming the fact that I was, indeed, not Indian, I got recommended some splendid local food and then returned home.

All in all a pleasant first day on holiday. Alone. Let's just hope it stays this way.

XxXx

The Lone Wolf Travels Part 3 - From the Ancient to the Modern Capital

Hostel Bar

 Look, everyone who cares knows about Beijing, and if not, look it up. So I'm just gonna do a sort of picture post here. There'll be some comment along the way. Enjoy.                                  

Hostel Room

lol

 When she eventually left her room, Edi visited the Great Wall of China.

I feel I should explain, Edi's really afraid of heights. So when they were like 'get into this open-air  death trap that is secured only by your body weight holding down the bar', let's just say that it took buckets of courage to take this photo.

View of the  Wall from the Cable Car

Look how wonky these stairs are...

You get to toboggan down! It was epic.

Me on the wall  

Then Edi visited The Forbidden City, the seat of the Imperial family from the Ming to the last [Qing] Dynasty.

The moat around the Forbidden City

Entrance to the Forbidden City

It's Mao!

Yes, I do know what it says. No, look it up yourself.

And finally, the last place in Beijing anyone really cares about, Tiananmen Square.

Mao's Mausoleum - I came too late to go in :(

Qianmen - lit. front gate - originally the front gate to the city

Memorial to the Heroes

Garden in the Forbidden City

I hate the way blogger arranges pictures, but sorting it out's such a pain that, as you can see, I ended up just giving up. Hope something there was of interest, other than my evident waning effort. Good day all, hope these pictures inspire you to leave your homes in mid-winter to go and visit these sites. I hear it's the land of sweat in the summer.

Xx