Terra Cotta Warriors

Four of us from the group went out for a few beers in an expensive 'foreigner'  bar (Expensive for China, just over a pound a beer) the night before going to see the Terracotta Warriors. I only had three beers, I didn't really fancy having hangover the next day whilst sight seeing in 37 degrees heat.

Most of the group met at 8 o'clock in the hotel reception, after checking out we grabbed two taxi's to the train station to catch a bus to the Terracotta Warriors. The bus journey wasn't too bad, most of the buses have good air conditioning.

As we got off the nice cool air conditioned bus the heat hit us. It was such a hot day but thankfully we were inside a lot of the day. The Terracotta Warriors are apparently the most significant archeological excavations of the 20th century and some say is the 8th wonder of the world. We opted to watch a video before entering the building to view the Warriors, it was pretty entertaining and easy to follow.

The Terracotta Warriors themselves were pretty amazing and are housed in a huge hanger type building. I was amazed how they have survived in such good condition although some they have been pieced back together. A lot of work is still on going with the Warriors as there are thousands of pieces still buried, it must be the worlds biggest jigsaw.

In the evening we caught the 16 hour train journey to Shanghai. Most Chinese people on the trains would bring along pots of noodles for dinner, at the end of the carriage was a hot water tank that was used to add hot water to their noodles. This wasn't as bad as it sounds as I managed, along with a few others to have a few beers and play cards until the lights went out. When the curtains opened in the morning we only had a few hours to kill before we arrived in Shanghai.

To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to visiting another busy city and I had been put off slightly by reading about how westernized Shanghai was. I told myself to reserve judgement until I had been there myself and experienced it.