Gambai from Xi'an

Dear friends and family,

I have to start off by telling you how I am typing right now, in a reclining cow designed chair with the keyboard in my lap and a beer on my coffee table, love it~!

I don't remember where I left off last because the icons on my screen are in Chinese which i am totaly lost on! I'll just start off when we met our group on the 10th, monday I think. We met at our hotel, way nicer than our hostel, and all had dinner at a really good dive spot that we ended up eating at every night the rest of our 2 nights in Beijing. We are by far the youngest in our group as all ten of them are older couples from Australia and England and two of the single ladies are from New Zealand and England. I am in love with all of them and we have kind of been adopted by everyone as their kids and visa versa haha. It's incredible to hear all of their stories, one couple sold everything in England and decided before they got married they'd travel the entire world, one couple has been going for 3 months prior and this other Auzzie older guy has been to over 70 countries and had something like 64 jobs in his life! These people are all so amazing and I'm sure you'll hear lots of them as the two single ladies from a town an hour south of Sydney have already been so kinda as to invite us to stay with them and loan us surfboards when we get there as their sons are pro surfers for Quicksilver!

We went the the Great Wall the first day with our group and we hiked the 1000 steps to the top. It was extremely humid and tiring but when we reached the top it was entirely worth it. I felt almost erie as the enormous wall stretched for miles and then was lost in the foggy mist, the first look out was an image I'll not soon forget. When we first drove up to the valled where the wall was and saw the fog we were dissapointed but it made for a much more mysterious and mythical feeling that I can't really fully paint in your minds, you'll have to wait for the pictures. To get down the wall there is a huge alpine slide or topagan if you call it that and it was a blast. Jay and I both got yelled at the whole way down because we didn't use the break and were hauling ass! According to our guide we hold the new record haha. Oh ya, our guide is Canadian and a pretty cool guy, a little shy but super knowledgable and very helpful with navigating these seemingless endless citiess.


The next day we explored Tiennamen Square and the Imperial City which was very cool. The mass size of the area and space really makes you feel the power the emperors held inside those walls. I got a great jump shot with the two Auzzie Gals in from of the massive picture of Mao haha. The only cool fact you won't find on google I thought was that one of the emperors had something like 3,500 concubines/mistresses! And his number one concubine chick sat at the thrown after he died and she was such a bitch that she ordered enough food every meal she ate that she could have fed 5,000 people! At the end of the tour we stopped in a caligraphy art gallery and had some tea and then one of the most amazing things happened that I'll never forget. One of the Auzzie gals, Mandy May, really wanted a Chinese Characture tattoo on her ankle and wanted to have it drawn here in China and then get the tattoo in Australia. The guy doing the caligraphy turns out the be the last remaining nephew of the last emporer and it was something like 4,000 Yuan to get anything done by him! After Mandy told the lady translating that she didnt want an actual piece but rather just a meaning of Peace and Harmony so she could get it tattooed the emperor's nephew said he would do it for 100 Yuan because he was so happy to hear she was getting it tattooed, pretty cool! I later found out that Mandy's sister was a professional caligrapher and wanted Mandy to get it drawn by someone professional, well I guess this guy would account for that! I then learned from Mandy that her sister was bi-polar and committed suicide before Mandy came on this trip and I now knew why she had tears in her eyes as she walked out of that art gallery, simply incredible and gives me goose bumps everytime I think about it.

That night we boarded a 15 hour train for Xi'a, where I am currently. We bought some wine for the train and played a game called presidents and assholes and we all almost died from laughter as we consumed some rather tasty red wine called appropriately "Great Wall Wine." Apparently we were so loud as we made animal noises and died laughing that our guide told us we were his first "write up" he's ever gotten from being on a train with a group, yet another great accomplishment for our group!

The next day after not having slept well at all we took a bus out to the grasslands where the Terra Cotta Warriors were discovered in 1974! This was one of the things I've been most excited to see and it didn't dissapoint. In a dome about the size of a football stadium where thousands of these warriors that were to continue in the afterlife with the Emporer Chin that had them assembled in this huge chambers. It should also be noted that Emperor Chin was responsible for united China, building the Great Wall and the first Forbidden City here in Xi'an that is in fact bigger than the one in Beijing! He had all the 5,000 or so workers burried so that no one would know of his tomb as it lay arest for 2000 years until it's recent discovery. Another cool fact is that he had his concubines burried alive! What a dick! Me and three others all bargained and got some Terra Cotta Warrior statues that were actually constructed out of the clay taken from massive pits, I'm going to send it home as it's pretty big for my pack but definately something I've wanted to get.

Last night after the Terra Cotta Warrior tour we went out to this super grub dive spot where we grilled veggies in a steaming crock pot and ate skewers of lamb and beef, belicimo! I think with our beers and our food I ended up spending something like 40 yuan, or like 6 US bucks! The bloody beer alone would be that much in the states, and yes I through in a bloody in there haha. Afterwards we all went to a favorite bar of our guides and got some good beer and talked story. We left there and the remaing youthful ones of us went to a bar called Night Cats. When we arrived we were immediately greated and takin to our own table where we ordered a bottle of Whiskey and they gave us a bottle of Vodka for free cuz we're white I guess? We danced with some people Chinese girls, which I didn't think existed until last night, and than checked out after out bill was something like 13 dollars each haha!

Xi'an is a pretty cool city, there is a massive shrine bell tower in the center of the city and to get across any street you have to go underground kind of like a lot of places in Beijing. I love it here because we finally saw blue sky for the first time yesterday and i've never been so realived in my life. I think over 50% of the haze was smog and the rest just overcast. Our group is freakin awesome and everyone is a kid at heart and though we've been together only four days our guide thinks we've all known each other for quite some time, possibly in another life haha.

We are going to ride a bike nine miles around the top of the city wall today which sounds cool and than hop on another long train, 12 hours, to a little Tibetan village and than off to Chengdu eventually. It might be a week before i write again as we are staying in guesthouses and will be away from "civilization" so don't worry if you don't hear from me for awhile. I miss everyone and hope you're all having a great time and I hope my Ducks keep kicking ass without me! Love you all!

Gambai,
Grant