Thursday 14/09
No alarm clock this morning. It’s a ‘transfer’ day today. We have a train at 2pm to Xi’an.
After a healthy breakfast, we all pack our stuff (difficult after 12 days at the same place).
We go to the West Beijing station by metro. We are heavily loaded, as usual. It’s not easy in the public transport with so many bags and suitcases. In the metro station, we manage to get the refund of our deposit for the 5 metro cards (that we have used intensively). We go to the train station where there’s already (45’ before the departure) a long queue for our train. It’s good that we already have our tickets. I go and grab a take-away at Mc Donald’s (to eat in the train…).
The train is very modern. It’s a high-speed train; it reaches 305 km/h. Kids work while we prepare our 3-night stay in Xi’an.
We arrive around 6:30pm in Xi’an or rather at the train station, located 15km from the town center, where Isabelle booked a hostel. We take the metro, then a bus (we don’t go unnoticed with our 13 bags/suitcases) to reach our ‘7 Sages’ hostel. Isabelle starts mastering the Baidu app (in Chinese), which is much more than a map; it also gives you the schedule of the buses and their trips. Very useful.
The hostel is nice. We have 2 rooms (the one for the kids has a mezzanine), with private bathrooms. We eat in the hostel, on the terrace. Fried rice, sweet & sour pork and braised beef with rice + a fruit/shrimp salad. Quite good.
Kids are in bed a bit later than 9:30pm.
Tomorrow we go and visit the Army of Terracotta Warriors!
