Kai Yuan Hotel Urumqi

... into a magical Christmas card scene - as the blurb says:<br><br>"Nestling among Alpine scenery, with melted snow as its source, lies Heavenly lake. Its crystal clear waters are surrounded by green pastures dotted with the yurts of nomadic Kazakhs, and the silvery mountains soar into the blue sky, their slopes full of fragrant pine and juniper"<br><br>I couldn't have put it better myself! <br><br><br>So, let the photos tell the story:

... A route of over 4000 kilometres.<br><br>The Chinese are brilliant at building roads through incredibly difficult terrain - as we saw when we travelled on the Karakorum Highway from China to Pakistan in 2007.<br><br>For this entry I will let the photos tell the story!

... game. The highlight of the my afternoon was kicking LX's butt at the air hockey table. Unfortunately that attracted a bit too much attention from the mostly male video arcade hangerouters (on top of the usual "which minority group is she?" curiousity) so, feeling slight unnerved, for the rest the time we spent in there I took to hiding behind Ma Jun and LX while they played some kind of mortal kombat game that they used to play when they were in ...

... Chinese people show their affection through food. She was pretty keen on me and wouldn't take no for an answer. After I got back, LX and his friend Ma Jun (who is Hui) took me to a Hui market area selling traditional foods. The food was good but we got harassed continuously by two wasps that were pretty keen on sharing our meal with us. Plus I got stared at a lot again. After being mistaken for being Kazak or Russian (?!) for the past few days, I was not particularly phased, but I ...

... family. There was much muttering outside the temple from travelers who complained that the whole thing was a capitalist venture poorly disguised under a cloak of religion. Whatever, even Daoist monks need to make a living, I guess. However, feeling scandalized by the cost of incense did not stop us from making a donation so that we could beat the **** out of a huge bell overlooking the lake. It was supposed to be lucky. And let's face it, hitting noisy stuff is fun. On the way back we ...

... other. I was pretty sure Mum was not going to be able to rest at ease until she managed to hear my voice and know that JV had told her the truth, I really was fine. This made me feel pretty ******, having pretty much sentenced my Mum to 10 days of worry. What a horrid daughter I am. I went out to lunch with LX and some of his classmates at a place that served Hui (one kind Muslim minority group in China) food. After that, the lot ...

... people are funny creatures. Resilient and adaptable. And here was proof. After discussing travel plans, we headed out for barbecue and beer at a night market. A super clean night market with proper tables and chairs (the likes of which I have seen nowhere else in China, the sparkling cleanliness, that is...) with people eating and chatting happily. People of different ethnic groups at that. It was almost midnight, but the city was wide awake. Changji is awesome. I think I will like it here.

... on ne parle pas la langue et on doit s adapter encore a une nouvelle culture. Hormis les pickpockets, les chinois sont tres sympas et vous font sentir que vous etes bienvenus. Ils m epattent car tous les gens que l on a rencontre, ne semblent jamais stresses ou fatigues. On dirait qu ils arrivent a maintenir leur energie au meme niveau toute la journee. C est peut etre du a la nourriture qu ils mangent et toutes les plantes avec lesquelles ils se soignent.

... in Xinjiang, the food of Wulumuqi is also lovely: perfect dried fruit, flatbread as round as one's face, da pan ji, and lovely la mian (stretch noodles) everywhere. Pomegranate juicers are all about. We stepped into a little shop and drank the richness down. The ruddy-faced workers wanted to learn some English: how difficult the word pomegranate. 3. The Ughyer section of the city felt like another country. We saw very few Han Chinese while there. More to follow ...

... much we just bludged off Tiffany's (main claim to fame - weird, dwarfish Han-Chinese men run up to her, pinch her arm, and then run off) hospitality, feeling rebellious in that we hadn't registered with the PSB. Our flight leaving China was for the following Friday, so we booked a plane from Urumqi to Shanghai for Thursday. After the Kashgar train trip and back, there was not a reason in this big wide world that was going to get us on a 50hr ...