Xian

"Good morning everyone!". "Did everybody sleep well?". Milly is making sure we're ready for a new train ride to Xi'an. The ride is problem free, and Mark and I managed to equalize 0-5 to 5-5 in the game euchre against our arch enemies Les and Derek. Finally in Xi'an we start going for a walk in the city. It's a cute place and I really don't get the feeling of being in a city ith a population of eight million, twice as many as in Norway. We had tour through the muslim quarter, there are muslim chinese, descendants of silk road merchants from the west having their fun at the end station.The city wall of Xi'an is not so shitty. In fact it's the best preserved wall in whole of China. Oncem up there, we got bikes to cycle around the thing. Thinking we're clever and it will be fun, Mark and I get a tandem bike. The bike on the city wall is a shitty bike. In fact. it's the shittiest bike I've ever used. We had some fun in the beginning though. The pedals were out of sync, so half of the energy went to keep balance.Then after 6 km we got a flat back tire and I had to run next to the bike. After 9 km I had to start pushing the bike and finally at 13 km we were back at the start, having amused alot of people on the way. I needed the excercise though, cause eating and drinking is fattining me up. In the evening we had dinner and the quad group went beer hunting. In the lobby Mark, Les and I lost 100 yuan each to Derek in Texas Hold'em and Mark and I are currently in the lead 6-5 in our epic game.

"Guys, have you eaten breakfast?". "You have to eat breakfast, because inside the terracotta museum there won't be any food". "You will then be hungry, and then you will complain!". Hahahaha, Milly's striking logic makes us all laugh all the time. But fair enough, she tells us everything we need to know, and then some. One hour outside of Xi'an is the famous terracotta army, a bunch of live size ceramic figures in battle formation. Seeing them is truly impressive and it's one of the coolest cultural things so far. They are one of the greatest archeological finds ever and you understand why when you have them in front of you. Back at the hotel, internet and a power nap awaited. 7 pm was hot pot time! sitting around a big pot with boiling water, you throw whatever you wanna eat into it and then fish it up after a couple of minutes. None of us being remotly close to being chop sticks experts, the fishing part tend to be quite amusing. After dinner Les, Derek and I ended up at a bar with few people. Those at the table next to us had emptied a bottle of Jameson, wine and some beers. The table looked like ground zero with cards, poker chips, peanuts and sigarets all over the floor and table. One of the three were crying and they seemed to be in shitty shape. We laughed alot and were glad it wasn't us and went on playing cards. Les taught us a new card game and we went home around 1 o'clock. Derek in desperate need of his beauty sleep, was not looking forward to enter his room too much. He shares it with a dutch Mark, Mark B, who snores like a locomotive haha. Adding insult to injjury, he had put the chain on the door so Derek was locked out. "Why are you locking me out man?!", Derek screams in the corridor of the hotel. I laughed and went to bed with a smile on my face. Tomorrow it was time to fly to Chengdu. Domestic flight in China. I couldn't wait