Its a great wall, but it will look alot better when it's finished

I think we had one of the best days ever for visiting the wall, the snow was being cleared by teams of Chinese workers so we could walk on it and the sun was out. We were able to walk about 1km along the wall, through several watch towers. All the towers had been refurbished along this section, but the wall still seemed to retain some of the original feel. The other benefit of piss poor weather is that there were very view tourists.

The lack of tourists and the cold weather did not deter the souvenir sellers who line the street leading to the wall. About 40 sellers, all selling the same shit, don't let you walk by without a 'Hey Lady! want to buy 3 T-shirts for a dollar!' or as Kate got: 'Hey mister, want to buy some nice looking shoes!'.

We caught the train from Beijing to Xi'an last night and all went well. We shared our cabin with 2 Chinese chaps who had their mate over from another cabin for a game of cards. I'm not sure what they were playing but it looked like snap. Every card that was played was thrown down like the last card to win a million. They were really nice guys and aside from the cabin being a bit hot, all was well.

Once we arrived at Xi'an we got chatting with an Irish chap and a English chap from Stoke on Trent. The Irish guy was really nice and told us about how he had fun at the silk market (dirt cheap place to buy knock off goods). He would go around the dress stalls asking to try on the dresses, the poor girls who run the stalls and are normally very pushy and irritating with their sales style were suddenly caught on the back foot. All they could say was 'Your crazy mister!'

The lad from Stoke said he had had a great day in Beijing, he had made friends with a couple of Chinese people who had taken him round town and then to a tea merchants for some tea tasting. At the end of the tasting he was presented for a bill for £140, not Chinese, British. He believed that it had been a great day out and that when we told him he had been scammed, he said "no way, they offered to pay for the tea tasting, but I insisted on paying", he told us he used to work for HSBC (that worldly wise bank), if I have any money with them I'd move it right away.

Off to see the plant pot warriors tomorrow, will keep you posted. My last note of worldly wise experience is this: If you see a burger on the menu that says, 'Bacon and cheese burger' don't assume it will have a bloody burger in it!