Facing Down the Terracotta Army

The train pulled into Xi'an and I followed the hordes out into the front of the train station, where there was someone with a signboard that said "Natalie" on it. Okay, so it wasn't a fancy chauffer, but it's still a cool feeling. It was the hostel manager and we hopped into the cab and came to the hostel. This hostel is really great. Oh, the rooms are nothing special, but the courtyards are great, and there is a fabulous bar/restaurant/entertainment room/internet cafe where I am blogging from). I sat outside this morning and had an American breakfast in the sun in my short sleeved shirt and petted the resident beagle. Walked back to the train station and found the public bus to take me out to the Terracotta Warriors. Somehow I ended up hanging out with three cute male French college students thoughout the afternoon. And the warriors are really something. It's really cool to see them restored, partially restored, and still being excavated. I kept thinking my Mumsy would just love this place. However, only about a 6th of them have been unearthed. I have to tell you that we saw nobody actually doing any work on them either, and it seems like this first 6th of them have been done for years now. I really don't think we have to worry about the Chinese taking over the world. The French guys and I both think the Chinese only do as much work as is absolutely neccessary to survive and argue that they are being worked to death. Even the guys who were supposed to be washing the windows didn't do a lick of work the entire hour we were in the building, and one was even asleep. Got back to the hostel with a huge blister and an aching back. Nothing I could really do about the blisters, but for the aching back the hostel arranged for me to get a traditional chinese massage for the whopping fee of $5. Oh, and for dinner I had this fabulous dish called Fish Flavored Aubergines (it's actually vegetarian, the aubergines are cooked in a sauce frequently used to cook fish in) - very spicy, but so awesome. You gotta try it.