Entry No. 2 by Josh

We are now in Xi'an which is more central in China than Beijing. The original plan was to go to Shanghai but we did a bit of research and the expo going on there has made prices a bit too high for us so we came here instead and will probably go straight to Hong Kong from here. We made it on to the Great Wall in the end, after 4 hours each way on a coach but it was definitely worth it. We will upload some photos when we can. We spent about 4 hours walking along the Badaling section of the wall which was a lot more tiring than you would imagine given that some of the steps are at ridiculous heights and angles. However, we were put to shame when we saw some old people doing a run on the wall. The next day we managed to find a vegetarian restaurant, which is really rare in a place like Beijing. It took us ages to walk there but it was worth it, we ate loads of different types of veg and mock meat (spare ribs, chicken etc) and racked up a bill of about 25 quid, which is pretty hefty for China. The following day we walked about an hour and a half to the train station to get our ticket to Xi'an then we went for some Japanese food which was some of the worst food we have ever had. We tried for the safe vegetarian bet called 'the vegetable set' and 'the tofu set' but between us we were served crab, beef, bacon and fish. So we drowned our sorrows in a cool bar we found in central Beijing (with Draft Beer). For our last day in Beijing we found out that our train station wasn't as close as we thought so we had a bit of a trek ahead. So we spent the morning looking at all the disgusting foods in a market (including Centipede, Crab and Cockroach). We went for a more cultural lunch of McDonald's, the only food we trust in China. So that evening we walked for about 4 hours to get to the station and then had to wait for another 4 hours for our 11 hour train journey, in which Chinese men still do not find it inappropriate to spit on the floor of and openly take photos of Clare on their phones. We arrived in the pouring rain in Xi'an at 9am and were escorted to our 4 pounds a night hostel for free. Its a really nice hostel though. Our Dorm is clean, with an en suite, and there is a good menu, pool table, Wi-Fi etc (and Draft Beer). For lunch today we saw that the Lonely planet recommended a restaurant that has a good vege menu so we embarked on another huge walk there only to find a menu containing things like deep fried turtle. We ordered a fried egg on rice, but can't really complain when it costs about 60p. Tomorrow we are going to go and see the Terracotta Warriors and hopefully the following day we can go to a centre that houses Pandas and other endangered species.