8 days in China...with my parents + sister

astroboy - do you know how long the overnight trains take? and do they leave at convenient times e.g. leave 8pm, arrive 10am?

I had friends that did it as a day trip. Flew down in the morning, got picked up at the airport, taken to the warriors, then to the muslim quarter, back to the airport and flew back to beijing. Far from ideal but they only had one day, wanted to see them and figured it was worth the money. They arranged it through a travel agent. If you are interested pm me and I can send you the email of my travel agent (who speaks english) and you can ask her if she can arrange something like that for you. No idea about the cost.

loungelizzard This is a much better site than anything I could explain

#10, the best would be the Z trains, those are only 11.5 hours overnight. Soft sleeper costs 400/417 RMB for upper/lower bunk.
Beijing West -- Xi'an: Z19 (2028--0758)
Xi'an -- Beijing West: Z20 (1923--0653)
Cheers!