Xi’an Warriors and Mutton Soup

After a chilly morning trying to leave Pingyao, our second bus did finally arrive, and we had a pretty easy journey through the snow to Xi’an accompanied by a never ending DVD of a terrible Chinese variety show!

We got dropped off in an unexpected part of town and had to haggle with a taxi driver to get us to our hostel.  Cue more manic driving, weaving in and out of traffic and a few emergency stops!  He’s definitely the worst we’ve had so far!

Had quite a chilled out day on the Wednesday; explored the Bell and Drum towers and wandered around the Muslim Quarter of the city, which was packed with stalls selling food, fruit, cakes, sweets and the usual tourist trinkets. After a lot of haggling we left with a huge bag of chilli peanuts (which we’re still eating now) and a pair of Ray-Bans for Gem (real obviously!). Headed to ‘Bar Street’ by the South Gate afterwards which was touted as having western-style pubs. They turned out to be more like cafes but we had a couple of beers all the same, albeit some of the most expensive we’ve had in China so far! Click here to read more…