The Tombs and Temples West of Xi'an

4th August 2004.

We should apologise in advance for "mocking" some of China's most important architectural sites. But, today the pain of travel in China has become too much for us. Spitting, pushing, smoking, choking, hawking, dorking, posing, nosing.... arggghhh... back off.

To compensate we decide to assimilate and indulge in a "Chinese Tourist day" where we too would engage in as much of the above as possible and quite possibly to do it a little better!

Overlooking the spelling you too could still be confused by this.

... I hope you washed your hands after the toilet... incidentally neither of us has seen anyone else do it. Mainly because in a public WC here you have no more desire to touch the water tap than the cleaner does.

The pinnacle of the Chinese tourist experience is standing in front of an amazing tourist attraction posing with some sort of "v" sign.... preferably blocking said tourist attraction from view in photo... but Jason needs more rice to accomplish this.... and judging from the other punters there is plenty of this around.

Where East meets West one is of course tempted to "Air-Guitar" in front of dead emperors tombs as a mark of respect for the dead genius.

... and in this edition of Chicks and Architecture is Claire looking well-spread outside the imperial tomb.

... and in this weeks animal cruelly we are again in China for another blinded donkey tease.

... so imagine you are 500 years old and used to guard a royal tomb but now keep an eye on the "WC". You too would be pulling this face.

We too ignore the don't climb on statues and pose sign to indulge in a bit of posing. These statues represent the international trader delegation who came to the funeral of Emperor Qian Ling to pay their respects.

... for a small fee you too can dress as an oppressed concubine.

... but be careful because at Prince Yi De's tomb someone has to explain all that touching.

Brilliant! Buddhist monk who has obviously relinquished all his important possessions by falling asleep while texting which pub too meet his mates at.

For a small fee this wise old man can tell you where you went wrong in your life and where not to buy glasses or shavers.

We had a shed load of fun today which seemed to have nothing to do with the beauty of surroundings what-so-ever.
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