Day Six: Hong Kong to Xian

We had an early wake time today, to allow time for a quick breakfast and cleaning of our apartments at Crossroads before our departure for the airport. Before our bus arrived, we had a debrief session with Sarah from Crossroads. We were all able to reflect on how valuable our experience at Crossroads was and Sarah expressed deep appreciation for the efforts of our school. The Crossroads team were particularly impressed with our willingness to serve and our humility in service.

After a very efficient check in process at Hong Kong International Airport, we had some time to spend our last Hong Kong Dollars or have them converted to Chinese Yuan.

We were greeted at Xian airport by our wonderful guides from Wendy Wu Tours - George and Nancy. They have both been spectacular guides. Our first stop was the ancient city wall of Xian. The wall was first constructed 1000 years ago and then rebuilt 600 years ago. It is the oldest and largest continuous walled city in China, extending for 42kms. An exciting part of our visit to the wall was bike riding on the wall. Some of our students managed to circumnavigate the wall within the 40 minute timeframe that we had for this part of he the tour.

The best part of the day had been saved until last as we were treated to an authentic Chinese cooking lesson, dinner and live show. As we separated into groups a chef came and showed each group the intricate method of rolling and folding the Chinese delicacy of Dumplings. Most of us came up with something reasonable but there were a couple of natural chefs among us. Following on from this we were treated to an 18 course dumpling dinner which included such a unique and wide selection of flavours from pork and shrimp to fungi and walnut. We were also introduced to the 'spicy' side of Chinese cuisine. It was nice to then sit back and enjoy a creative performance of music and dance that highlighted the prosperous years of the Tang Dynasty, a very popular period of time for the Chinese people. 

We've settled down now in the Embassador hotel with some incredibly nice rooms - ritzy is a word that has been used - and everyone has been encouraged to get some rest because tomorrow is another day packed with activities.