Busy, Busy, Busy In China's Ancient Capital

I'm getting used to the overnight trains now; they make for a much better night's sleep than the overnight buses. I feel for the Aussies, though; it's torture for them. You should have seen the look of disgust on Steve's face as he uttered the word, 'beer?' to the lady with the trolley only to find a room-temperature tinny as his only form of intake while onboard. Crikey.
 
It's all busy, busy, busy again. After a disaster trying to keep in convoy when finding our hotel, we finally headed out to explore the Muslim Quarter. The streets here are filled with tourist markets, so the highlight for me was the Grand Mosque, probably the most grand temple I have visited since being in China.
 
In the afternoon we hired bikes and rode around the tops of the 14-km rectangle that makes up Xi'an's city walls. The walls were built on the foundations of the walls of the Tang Forbidden City during the reign of Hongwu, first emperor of the Ming dynasty. It was a very scenic cycle and definitely one of the highlights of a visit to Xi'an. Then we headed to the to 1,400-year-old Wild Goose Pagoda, dating back to the Tang dynasty. 
 
In the evening, we had a dumpling banquet to attend at Shaaxi Grand Opera House. 22 different types of Chinese dumpling were served up, with fillings ranging from ham to duck, to egg and even walnut. Some even had their own flash designs to indicate their filling. Afterwards a show we were treated to song and dance onstage. It wasn't bad, but to be honest that the show we saw a couple of nights before was fresh in the memory and this really didn't compare.
 
From what started as a bit cumbersome, with a lot of travelling and not much activity or sight-seeing, is really turning into a jam-packed and fun-filled exploration of China. Even though the country is vast, the history is quite fascinating. It helps that Dragon is so knowledgeable; he's quickly becoming one of the highlights of the trip. Plus, he lets me get away with most things on the basis that I'm a monkey.