Terracotta Warriors, crazy markets, and a bamboo boat trip

The rest of our time in China was fantastic! After a wonderful week in Beijing, we took the train south to Xi'an where we visited the site of the most significant archeological excavation of the 20th century - what am i talking about? The Terracotta Warriors of course! A 2200 year old underground terracotta army of 8000 soldiers and 6000 horses protecting the 1st Chinese Emporor's tomb. It is usually hard to imagine things being so old when you see them behind glass cases in a museum, but to actually see something so old in the place it was found, archeologists still working to uncover it was really incredible.

By far the craziest markets we have ever seen were in Xi'an and Guilin. In Xi'an, the market went on forever, stalls selling everything you could possibly want or need. In Guilin, the food market was partly disgusting, and partly gorgeous (i know, sounds impossible). All the farmers selling their fruits and vegetables, displaying them in a way you almost don't want to ruin it by taking some. The meat section is where it got ugly, brains lined up on tables (not sure what animal it was from), the entire head of a pig with the eye looking right at you, cats in cages, a baby deer (i think?) alive with only his head poking out of a canvas bag. Not for the faint hearted - they eat a lot of different things here, breaded starfish, seahorses, beetles, mice on sticks could be found in the night market in Beijing, Aurelia even tried chicken feet offered to her on the train. I wasn't so brave, but she said it tasted like chicken wings.

We had a gorgous-perfect few days in Yangshuo, bike riding around the country side, taking a bamboo boat down the Yulong river with the most gorgous mountains surounding us.