Monday 30 April - as it was a holiday week and based upon our experience of yesterday"s traffic the advice was leave earlier. So after a early breakfast and a slightly muddled check out we left at 0800 for a 1045 flight. Needless to say we reached the Hainan Airlines terminal 1 just 40 minutes later.
Although no Starbucks in the domestic terminal we did manage a half decent cappuccino and an on time push back. The flight to Xi'An was two hours and the city lies to the SW of Beijing. Having met our guide, Linda Guo, the city turned out to be an hour's drive from the airport.
Xi'An itself is surrounded by an intact (well rebuilt) city wall - the only complete wall in Asia and within the wall the streets follow a grid pattern.
Once settled in we took a stroll though the town towards the Bell Tower and the shopping area. Nothing too special although getting a taxi back provided some fun as the driver did not really seem to know quite where he was going.
For the evening entertainment we headed to the Tang Dynasty show and a dumpling dinner. Who knew so many types of dumplings existed - a Xi'An speciality ! The show itself consisted of 12 or so scenes of Court life at the time of the Tang dynasty and was really quite good fun.
Although no Starbucks in the domestic terminal we did manage a half decent cappuccino and an on time push back. The flight to Xi'An was two hours and the city lies to the SW of Beijing. Having met our guide, Linda Guo, the city turned out to be an hour's drive from the airport.
Xi'An itself is surrounded by an intact (well rebuilt) city wall - the only complete wall in Asia and within the wall the streets follow a grid pattern.
Once settled in we took a stroll though the town towards the Bell Tower and the shopping area. Nothing too special although getting a taxi back provided some fun as the driver did not really seem to know quite where he was going.
For the evening entertainment we headed to the Tang Dynasty show and a dumpling dinner. Who knew so many types of dumplings existed - a Xi'An speciality ! The show itself consisted of 12 or so scenes of Court life at the time of the Tang dynasty and was really quite good fun.