This Blog Post Dedicated to the Woman With Tire Marks Down Her Back >Larry

Piece of advice: Always check the brakes when you rent a bike (or for that matter motorcycles, cars and pottery wheels too). I was peddling down a sidewalk in Xi'an, winding my way through umbrella wielding pedestrians when a women jukes to the left, directly in the path of my bike. I quickly flexed the hand brake on the bicycle, but instead of a sharp reduction in speed I got a sharp snapping sound. This blog entry is dedicated to that women, whoever she was. Actually I dodged her by a hair, but the rest of the day I had to drive on the bustling, lawless streets of Xi'an with no brakes, reducing me to Flintstone style feet breaking.

While in Xian I took a bike ride along the 17 kilometer wall encircling the city. This was the biggest city in the world 2000 years ago and from the area inside the wall I can see why. Also while in Xi'an I saw the Terracotta warriors, many thousands of human size clay warriors that were created to guard the tomb of China's first emperor. They were discovered in 1974 by some peasants digging a well after standing underground undisturbed for over 2,000 years. They have only uncovered a thousand or so of the warriors for fear of exposing them to the elements, which are just a small fraction of the army. Each sculpture has a unique face and were discovered fully armed with weapons still sharp enough to cut a cantaloupe. I'll be honest; I was a little underwhelmed by the site. I guess I was expecting more of them. Or maybe it was the airplane hanger that covers them, crowded with large Chinese tour groups that took away from the atmosphere.

This morning I arrived in Beijing after a relatively comfortable ride in business class from Chengdu. I found out that you don't have to beat anyone up to avoid becoming someone's bitch. That's for prison. Lesson learned. I picked up my ATM card from a friend's friend here in Beijing and hopefully tonight I will be able to draw money out for the first time since my wallet was stolen. I also applied to get an extension on my visa. If you remember I was granted a 23 day visa to China, the first one of its kind as I am informed from the people at the visa extension bureau. They only give them out for 30, 60 and 90 days. Lucky me. 23 is an auspicious number in China, and sports. Unfortunately I need 26 days so I get to pay 20 dollars for some Chinese bureaucrats mishandling of my paperwork. OK, venting over.