For many people, today is the day we knocked one item off our bucket list – we visited the Museum of the Terracotta Army and Horses. After an hour’s drive out of Xi’an, we arrived and began our tour. The army was built in 200 BC, by Emperor Qin, and the entire tomb took over 36 years to build.   We were very pleased that one of the farmers that originally found the tomb in 1974 was in the museum to sign our souvenir books. It was very difficult to resist purchasing more soldiers than we could carry. Aside from the obvious thrill of seeing the soldiers and horses, bargaining to buy fake terracotta soldiers with the “hello” gentlemen was probably the most fun. The challenge was to get a box for the cheapest prices we could.

The museum was simply amazing – three massive pits and a showroom of pieces found from other sites around the area took us a few hours to get through, but the time flew by.

After another great lunch (where we watched two chefs make noodles from scratch – fascinating), we finished the tour.

We drove back to the city and stopped at Muslim Street. As Xi’an is the start of the Silk Road, Muslim people settled there and currently there are approximately 600 000 Muslim people in Xi’an. We visited the mosque and then spent some time shopping in the bazaar. There was so much delicious-smelling food everywhere and it was hard to resist, as we were going to dinner.

We had an early dinner (Chinese Hot Pot – where we cooked our own food in small, individual hot pots at our table) and then headed for the train station.

We had a small drama (someone forgot to put their porcelain knife set in their checked luggage, so that was confiscated, didn’t they, Matt!) but otherwise, everything went smoothly. We met a group of students from Western Australia who were also on the train and shared stories. Very soon, the gentle rocking of the 200 km/h train

ride sent everyone (or nearly everyone) off to sleep.