Swiftly moving on

And within a blink of an eye we are on the move again. Tiayuan was really a stop over between Beijing and Xi'an and we managed to achieve the couple of things we wanted to do there. We boarded another train this morning but this time got there within plenty of time unlike our last train journey. It took about 3 and a half hours to get to Xi'an and luckily we were arriving at a station that allowed us to then get the metro to the area of the hostel. The metro is so cheap, roughly 60p each for a half an hour journey! We arrived and had pretty poor instructions to go with from the hostel so spent a good 20 minutes on the road showing people the address is Chinese and being sent up and down the road. Luckily a lovely man who spoke a little English offered to help us find it. He said someone helped him when he was travelling in Europe and he always wanted to return the favour when back in China. After a while he managed to find the building which was within a complex of gated buildings. Turned out the complex was about 30 metres from the metro entrance! After Nick jumped the fence we were in the area and found the hostel. we were greeted and taken upstairs where a guy told us to wait. We sat at a table while a group of guests were sat on chairs with yukalaies and taking it in turns to play guitar and sing. 45 minutes later and almost falling asleep it finally ended and they wanted to check us in. Although we booked ages ago they had given our dorm beds to someone else so we were upgraded from a 6 bed dorm to a private 6 bed room with a bathroom and balcony on our own! We're unsure if anyone will join us but hopefully not. This made up for the issues with check in a little. We headed out and found a shopping complex with a food hall to eat and luckily a lovely lady saved us when the cashier was trying to explain that we couldn't pay with cash but only an app. She paid for us and we gave her the money. Everyone is so willing to help here. The supermarket downstairs after was amazing especially a garden section that was even decorated with a huge fake blossom tree. They semester to put detail into every aspect of it. After some food shopping we wondered back and walked down a bustling street with music playing and women dancing as well as singers performing. The atmosphere was amazing and certainly a change to all we have seen so far.Read more