2000 year old army

Xi'an 12th July 2006
So had a bit of a walk across the city while looking for suitable acomadation.
Although Xi'an also has most of it's walls the first impression is of a modern prosperous city. The drum and bell tower in the center are as good or beter then those in Beijing. I settled on a place a bit neared the train station, which is handy, and a bit more of a working mans area, nice hostel.
I spent alot of the first day queueing to buy a train ticket out.
The vast ticket hall being completely full of people queueing and when you finaly find out that there isn't a ticket in the next three days you have to queue up in a different line for tickets more in advance then three days.
I decided not to get the train to Tibet, too much red tape, expense and not enough info.

Walking in China is acompanied by the very frequent sound,
"HacKkkkk tWap, thwewp" the constant spitting isn't as disgusting as the way the maximum noise must be made in producing it.
There are many other ocasions where the maximum noise must be made also, eg tourist attractions, loadspeakers and random shouting are a must.

Today I went to see the Terracota warriors outside of town,
this 8000ish strong (they haven't dug them all up yet) 2000 year old, life sized army, with individual features is quite impresive.
Apperently the chinese invented chrome plating 2000 years before its modern inventors meaning that the weapons were still sharp, cool.