Hello from Hong Kong

Back in Hong Kong and what's the first thing we do? Markets of course!

We were sad to leave China after a magnificent week - so much to take in there, and so different to home. As we said goodbye to our guide Tracey it was a bit sad that Kate would no longer have any opportunity to use her Chinese (she's no better than the rest of us in Hong Kong because they speak cantonese here, not mandarin), but she was given one final chance to prove her usefulness as I was taken aside by Chinese customs to explain why Bill had 2 BB guns in his bag! Surprisingly, after a phone call to the Chinese government to confirm, he was allowed to keep these, but had 2 magnetic toys confiscated.

Had a very busy day in Xi'an. We headed off early to see the terracotta warriors, which were every bit as amazing as Kate and I had remembered. They have dug up 3 pits, but there are several more still buried that they do not plan to excavate until they have better technology to preserve the paint on the warriors. The biggest pit open has about 6000 clay warriors in it, of which 100 have been restored, all slightly bigger than lifesize and each one individual. Apparently the craftsmen modelled the faces off each other. If anyone didn't do a good job he was killed, though as Bill pointed out this was probably a better fate than that of those who did a good job, who were buried alive at the completion of the tomb so that the secret of its location would remain hidden.

Over the past 2 years there has been a huge shopping area built around the museum, in readiness for the hordes next year with the Olympics - I preferred the walk up through trees and gardens last time .

We also went to the Wild Goose Pagoda, which is inside a buddhist monastery. Climbed to the top of the 7 layers of that, which gave us a great view out over Xi'an (our legs have done pretty well on this trip).

Xi'an has a city wall which is still intact and they are very proud of. We hired bikes - 2 tandems and a single - and had a hilarious time wobbling our way around the top of the wall. Tandems are not as easy as you would think!

Off to Ocean Park now to ride the roller coasters.

Love to all. Keep up the good work with the tests cam.