Burning my tongue on some Jasmine tea I come to you again, with part II of my travel log.
If I remember correctly, we are still in ....


China!

After Beijing we really had no plans where to go next, we were going to visit our teacher in Changchun but as it was just a few degrees too cold we decided to take the first train down a bit further south to Xi'an. In our blissful innocent state of not knowing how things are done in China we ordered two tickets for hard seats, thinking they were the same as normal seats on a bus and we could get some sleep as the ride took about 13 hours. When we entered the train our dreams of our own seats and some sleep were roughly taken away. We had to fight to get in and to our seats, which were basically at the end of a small bench, facing another three seat bench so privacy was out of the question. Looking around all you could see was Chinese people carrying incredibly big packs filled with god knows what, chatting loudly and standing in the hallway as many of them didn't even have seats. All of them were of course very interested in the foreigners and I got a lot of long stares followed by whispering and chuckling. Somehow the 13 plus hours passed but there was not a lot of sleeping done on our part.

Xi'an. Stepping out of the train station we had to fight our way through throngs of taxi drivers eager to take us to hotels or hostels around the town. At this point I was very happy to have learned to say "no thanks, not needed" because if you say it in Chinese they will quickly go away and leave you alone.
We escaped into a five star hotel where we got a map and asked for directions to our hostel. We hopped on a bus, which costs 1 yuan (18 ISK), found our hostel which turned out to be one of the coolest hostels I have ever stayed at. Such nice atmosphere, amazing people, good food and cheap rooms!
I still wish I could pop over from time to time and hang out there.

Our first day of sightseeing we walked around the shopping district and the Muslim quarter. Such a lively place, narrow streets lined with market stalls, shopkeepers tossing noodles in the air, the smell of roasting nuts filling the air and in the heart you find the big Mosque.
We also made our way to the Big Goose Pagoda, with its massive square of joy and happiness; it was filled with people strolling around and children flying kites, I could have spent the whole day there.
But the tour must go on, we had an early start the following morning as we had booked a trip to go see the Terracotta warriors.

This must have been on the 15th of March. We woke up at nine a.m. and joined the small group of people going to see the warriors. The bus ride took about 2 hours so we got to know each other on the way. There were backpackers from England, America and Canada. One of them, Dave, had been traveling around China for some time and told me tales of jobs teaching English in S-America, I spent the rest of the trip dreaming.... 
Apart from it being a huge tourist trap, the tour was nice, the old farmer who discovered the warriors was now being kept at the museum, signing autographs. He had become something of a mini-celebrity, but I just felt sorry for him. They had turned his land into a museum and forced him into retirement. Actually, he was not the first to unearth these warriors, other farmers had found them earlier but thought it was a bad omen so they just put them back and stayed silent.
Lucky them....

Our last day in Xi'an we spent buying train tickets to Shanghai as it had been recommended to us by some of the backpackers, walking around the city, hanging out at Starbucks and playing games at the hostel. That night they had an open mic night and we enjoyed some wonderful tones from the guests.

17th of March and we were on our way to Shanghai! This time we were prepared and got hard sleeper seats. A bit more expensive but we got bumped up from 4th class (hard seats) to 2nd. Our bunks were on the top, so close to the ceiling that you couldn't sit up straight, you had to lie down or suffer a massive sore neck. We soon fled our bunks and spent the evening in the dining cart, facing the window, enjoying the great view of the Chinese countryside. In the morning we returned but were told we needed to buy something to stay there. We asked for some tea and the woman handed it to us and sat down next to me and began a one-sided staring contest with me. We ended up talking in a mixture of English and Chinese (teaching each other Chinese and Icelandic as well) but mainly using a lot of  gestures. We took some pictures before leaving and I gave them some green tea. Instead I received some Jasmine tea, which I am enjoying as I type.

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It's Sunday and it's getting late, I have class early tomorrow so I must stop now and retire to my bed. More on our travels soon, next week will be hectic as it is the first 'real' week of school of this new semester but it should be good.

Until next time!