It was a pleasant 11 hours of train ride, I managed to get a good night sleep in this 3 level bunks of hard sleeper beds. The hard sleeper class has two 3 level bunk beds facing each other in an open compartment. In fact, the bed was not that hard as what it sounded to be. The thin cushion bed was layered with clean bed sheet, blanket and a pillow.

The lowest bunk bed was more expensive and much difficult to get, as it was much more comfortable as compared to the middle and upper bunks. The height of the middle and upper beds did not allow for a proper sitting position except lying position. With that middle and upper bed's passengers would share sitting space with the lower bunk. Hence, if you purchase lower bunk bed, one should prepare to accept unwanted guests sitting on your bed.

We arrived at Xian railway station early morning at 7am. The minute we got off from the train, the very first scene that we came across was seeing 2 policemen trying to arrest a young man in force by ripping off his cloth at the station. This incident has posed an unsecured feeling to us. Seeing that, Jwee Seng kept reminding me to be more attentive to safe guard owns belonging.

However, the present Xian, which developed into a heavy industrial city is not a pleasant place to live in.

We found the place to be heavily polluted. During our 3 days stay in the city we hardly saw any blue sky, not even in a good sunny day. The city was constantly covered by a layer of haze. If we were to measure with the air cleanliness index used in Malaysia, then it easily hit more than 200 points where we had our bad air from Indonesia's bush fire back in 1998. In fact, Xian is one of the 10 most polluted cities in the world.

After realizing the scam, we left the tour halfway to find our own way. We ended up spending extra time and money for a boring exhibition center. Luckily, we managed to catch on the correct public bus 306 outside the center and carry on our trip to Terracotta site.

Before coming to Terracotta, we were informed by a British roommate at Jin Hua that there were no signboards at the bus drop off point directing to this well-known archeology site. At first, we thought what he meant was no sign in English. However, when we arrived at the Bus Park, we were lost too. It was indeed not a single sign in neither Chinese nor English to direct you to the Terracotta site, which located another 100 meter opposite the Bus Park. The entrance of the Terracotta was not openly noticeable. It was located behind of a stretch of souvenir stalls away from the main road.

The entrance fees were priced at 55yuan/person, we tried to use our International student card for student fare. But, only local Chinese Student card was accepted and not others. There were guides hanging around at the ticketing office offering personal guided tour with additional charges of 100 yuan/per guide.

This spectacularly world prominence archeology site is consists of three rectangular vaults. Of which these excavated sites housed thousands of clay soldiers to guard Qin Shi Huang's tomb, famously known as " Ping Ma Yong" in Chinese.

Vault 1 is the largest, and about a fifth of the area has been excavated, revealing over thousands figures (out of an estimated 8000) ranked in battle formation. In this vault tourists are allow to inspect the static soldiers at closer range via raised walkways. The statues are averaging 1.8m in height and are hollow from the thighs up; head and hands were modeled separately and attached to the mass-produced bodies. These soldiers were made with unique features and expressions which some believed each is a portrait of a real member of the ancient Imperial Guard.

At the time we visit, there were not too many tourists, however the site started to get crowded after noontime. Even though there were signs all over prohibit photo taking, but many just ignore the warning, as the security police did not seem to care less. Seeing this, Jwee Seng took out his camera and zoom lens fulfilling his enthusiasm in getting perfect shots. In fact, vault 1 was the only place with enough brightness to get good photo as compared to vault 2 and vault 3 where the lighting were very dim. We managed to capture a few good shots that made the trip even more memorable.

Vault 2 is a smaller, L-shaped area, containing four groups - crossbow men, charioteers, cavalry and infantry - who display more variety of posture and uniform than the figures in the main vault. The much smaller vault 3, where 68 figures and a chariot have been found, seems to be a battle headquarters.

Beside vault 2, there is a small museum where one of the two magnificent bronze chariots, found in 1982 near Qin Shi Huang's tomb, is displayed. At the left of vault 1, there is a 360-degree theatre hall showing movies of Qin Shi Huang's story and the making of Terracotta army. No chairs were found inside the theatre hall, tourists are requested to stand and turn around to watch the movie. The sound effect and the visual display are very impressive as if we were part in the battle field.

We spent more than 3 hours at our own pace to have closer look at each vault. It was certainly a must see site which should not be missed at all!

To us, other than Terracotta Army the other worth seeing attraction in Xian was the Muslim quarter off Xi Dajie, which preserved a different side of old China in its labyrinth of alleys centering on the Great Mosque. We were attracted most by its assorted delicious Muslim food especially the "Chia San" soup dumpling, the lamb noodle etc.

Due to time constraint, we enrolled into a day tour. It was a wise choice, the whole day trip package cost 240 yuan/person which covered transportation, entrance fees and 2 ways cable car to North peak of Huashan.

We were taken for 21/2 hours of highway bus ride to reach Huashan town. The tour gave us 5 hours to explore freely at the mountain. After taking a light lunch, we started off our hike by taking cable cars up to North Peak. The ride took less than 10 minutes to reach North peak at 1691m above sea level.

After only an hour of steep staircases walk from North peak, I was starting to give up the idea of conquering the West and South peaks. The climb seemed to show no signs of coming to an end as stairs just kept on coming. I split off with Jwee Seng, who was rushing his way to film more shots at west and south peaks.

Gradually, I slowed down my pace and managed to make a few friends along the way. I met up a friendly retired old Chinese couple, we chatted about their family and life in China.

Though the summits were not very high, however the gaunt rocky peaks and jagged slopes made the going rough in places. Luckily for safety measure, at every difficult point there were chained handrails attached firmly to the rock. At one point, there were lots of padlocks locked along the metal handrails. I saw a few Chinese couples bought padlocks from the stall sellers along the path and locked the padlock to the metal chains. After checking with the locals, I learned that these padlocks were regarded as "love lock" and by locking the padlock to the chains symbolized both lovers' heart will be locked together forever. What a romantic myths indeed.

Finally after an hour and half of strenuous walk, I met up with Jwee Seng at West peak. Together we for go south peak and hurried our way down to join the rest of the tour members, as we were running out of the stipulated 5 hours dateline. This was the main drawback in joining guided tour, limited free time.

Huashan to me was a rocky mountain without much greenery. However, the characteristics of local tourists' kept us entertained. We noticed most of the locals hiked in their fashionable, but often highly impractical holiday finest. Men wore office suits; leather shoes carrying plastic bag full of drinking bottles and snacks, while ladies nicely make-up with formal dress and wearing high-heeled shoes!