Xi'an, China

After a night and an entire day in the train, we finally arrive in Xian. It's already midnight and we, of course, haven't booked any hotel. By chance, we met a kind Chinese woman on the train that could speak some basic english so she told us there was an hotel just out of the station where we could stay. Xian is so cold, we were not prepared for this kind of wheather and Charles is still wearing shorts. We made the mistake of checking the temperature for Hong Kong only and of course the weather is very different in the mainland, if fact it's snowing. After a good night sleep we go to Xian's main attraction: The Terra-Cotta Warriors. We decide to share the cost of a guide with 2 American guys but the guide doesn't explain us anything that is not mentionned on the walls and spends more time leading us to shops and inciting us to buy souvenirs than actually explaining us anything interesting. But in the end it's not bad, it enables us to practise our bargaining skills.
In the evening and the next morning, we visit the city itself. It's a very nice city, not too big, with a beautiful achitecture + even if it's very cold, the sun is shining so it's really enjoyable to walk in the typical streets, on the city wall, see the pagodas and towers. People seem happy here, they are dancing just below the big wild goose pagoda, we would have liked to join them but did not dare.
That's also in Xian that we discover we are very attractive to Chinese people. Adeline because of her eyes and hair colors and Charles because of his big nose (Yes, I assure you, they do like big noses as crazy as it may seem). We've been asked several times to be taken pictures with like if we were some kind of stars. It was funny ;-)