My last stop after Beijing was Xi'an, a city in central China. I left Beijing from the colossal train station for a 15-hour overnight train to Xi'an. It was around Golden Week (the busiest time of year for traveling) and all the sleeper trains were booked up, so all that was left were seats and "standing room". I bought a seat. I wasn't sure what to expect but was up for anything. Besides, who could complain over a $23 ticket? Little did I know, there was plenty to complain about after that train ride! My seat was pretty much padding set against the wall and I didn't have the luxury of getting the window seat for something to lean on. At about 3:00am, exhausted and frustrated at being jerked around by the train and being unable to get any rest, I finally managed to get an hour or two of patchy sleep by sitting sideways in my seat, crossing my arms, leaning over, and resting my head on my arms. The people who bought standing room tickets and were sleeping on the floor looked more comfortable! Fortunately, as all things do, the train ride came to an end when I finally reached Xi'an.

I arrived early in the morning and planned on heading to Huashan that day, but I had to take the day off to recoup from the train ride. I got to my hostel and slept on my bed, dirty and fully-clothed, until 1:00 in the afternoon. I woke up feeling refreshed, took a shower, ate then went out to explore the city in the remaining amount of daylight left. I visited the Bell and Drum towers, walked around the malls, spent some yuan and a few hours at the outdoor Muslim market then went up onto the ancient City Wall that surrounds the downtown core. I rented a bicycle on the wall and spent an hour riding on the bumpy cobblestones around the entire wall. It was a hot and sticky day so the novelty of riding a bicycle on a 640-year old wall that was used for centuries to fend off attackers, combined with the nice breeze and exercise, definitely made my day.

I spent the following two days on Huashan, just outside Xi'an, but on my fourth and last day I made a half-day trip out to see the world-reknown, super famous Terracotta warrior statues, dubbed the "8th Wonder of the World"! ...It was kind of a dud. The size, scope, and historical significance of them are pretty amazing but it was a bit over-rated and there wasn't much to see. I went to see statues and they were literally just a bunch of statues. You could barely see some in display cases and the rest from railings 100 feet away. I saw the entire museum (some parts twice) in an hour before returning to Xi'an.

I spent the rest of my time in Xi'an discovering delicious Chinese food restaurants and exploring the rest of the city. I met up with two Japanese people in my hostel who took me to a small, local restaurant for delicious spicy fish soup (for $1!). As I was wandering the city at one point I decided to follow a big, dense group of people walking down the street, figuring they were heading somewhere interesting. It wasn't until ten minutes later when I realized that it wasn't a group of people, just a normal, overcrowded amount of people on the sidewalk heading nowhere! On my last night I caught a moto-taxi to the Big Goose Pagoda to watch the nightly water fountain show. It's basically a huge public fountain that sprays colored jets of water into the air in turn with music. It was wicked! Who would've thought water and gravity could be so entertaining?

When it was time to leave Xi'an I caught a 2-hour domestic flight on Shenzhen Airlines for $80 instead of taking another overnight train. I was done with trains! I arrived in Shenzhen, directly across the border from Hong Kong, and went through a harrowing 2-hour experience from the airport to the Hong Kong border, switching buses, going through customs during the Swine Flu scare (when HK "quarantined" 280 in a hotel because of one sick Mexican), switching buses again and then getting to my hostel in Tsim Sha Tsui. I didn't stay at the same hostel as when I arrived but got a different one in the same building. I spent another two nights in Hong Kong before catching an early flight back to Sapporo on the Sunday before I returned to work.

It took me the following week to recover from my travels and catch up on sleep. It's been almost three weeks since I've been back but it seems like so long ago. Time here moves so differently! I'm really glad I decided to go to China and it was a great experience to travel solo, which might be a bad thing because now I am hooked! I want to go back to China again to see all the spots that I missed on this trip. China's a huge country with beautiful landscapes and I was only able to see a tiny fraction of it. I managed to do what I went there for - to hike the Great Wall - I ate amazing Chinese food, met travelers from all around the world, learned to become more independent, and I didn't catch Swine Flu. I'd consider this trip pretty successful.

My next trip overseas will be during Christmas time.. hmm.. Where to?

Check out my album for more pictures of Xi'an