Royal International Hotel Urumqi

... heading into Huashan) by a shoe repair/key cutter guy. A whole 2 RMB and my bag was as good as new. Then it was time for video games. Except for a period of time in Taiwan when I took to playing on the drum machines after work to cool down after a particularly stressful class, I have never been that into video arcades. Having said that, this didn't stop me from playing a shoot and kill zombie thing, then getting blisters from an over-excited bout on the ...

... the curiosity was even more noticeable when walking around with LX (Han) and Ma Jun (Hui) than usual. After being very nice, but glancing at me surreptitiously when she thought I wasn't looking, the waitress finally couldn't contain herself and the question "Which race is she?" burst out from her lips. I can see if I come back to Xinjiang I am going to have to have a t-shirt made with this information printed on it in order to stop people from dying of curiosity regarding my heritage.

... that I have become much too impatient since I moved to the PRC. After this incident I really must agree with her. While it is all very useful to possess a glare that can scare off military police, it does make me wonder what the guy would have done if confronted with a knife-toting terrorist instead of an English teacher. I guess his training didn't cover impatient women. We went out for coffee, before heading back to the hotel to meet with a travel agent to book me in for the Kanas ...

... Jinan, I had been short on sleep every night, almost died of exhaustion after hiking Huashan and had felt quite off in Jiayuguan from the difference in food and water. I was a bit worried. I went back to the hotel room to rest. Boiled some tap water and drank it, which turned out to be a mistake. Tap water is supposed to be safe in China if it is boiled, but the stuff in Xinjiang is quite hard. I learnt this the next day from a ...

... This threw LX a bit, who was struck by what would happen to the both of us if I was thought to be a spy of some sort. Actually, other than a car ahead of us driving like a loony and braking too quickly, causing me to hit my forehead and nose against the bars of the cab (lots of cabs in China have cage-like bars down the middle), the trip to the hotel was uneventful. Well, considering the nightmare-like gangs dragging people from cars and bashing them to death by the sides of ...

... This part of Urumqi certainly is in stark contrast to the abject poverty we saw on the outskirts of the city during our first visit to Urumqi by bus from Turpan in 2007.

Our room in the Hoi Tak Hotel did not disappoint us. It was a beautifully appointed corner suite looking right across the city to the snow capped Tian Shan Mountains. In front of our hotel was the lovely (and then) peaceful Renmin Park, and as always inhabited by ambling local families ...

... doing our own stuff, learning many new things from our range of BBC DVD's, internet and books;) For now well keep it short' but we'll soon fill some space up with stories about our daily experiences in Urushitty, as we call it. Love to you all! Carolien & Jerry

A 24 hr train ride from X'ian lead us to the bustling metropolis of Urumqi. We managed to make a friend on the train, Qu (pronounced Choo). She helped us book a fairly respectable hotel downtown, and assisted us in navigating the Chinese telephone system. There's no standard from province to province, so every time we seem to switch cities, it's like starting all over again. Qu's English was more than passable, and as a student ...

... Uploaded the diary and a bunch of photos before giving it away at about 9 pm Beijing. Caught a #7 back to the hotel. Ate more of the bread we bought, but neither had much appetite. MP still on a regular dose of the runs, so starts a course of antibiotics. This leaves DP exposed, as it is the last course we have. Set the alarm for 8 am, and have a restless night' sleep, with the air conditioner on the blink, cutting in and out, and dripping water.

... the lake was nearly 2000m asl. It felt like high 30's in the middle of the day. My favourite activity was at about 6pm to walk up the 500m hill & watch the changing of the colours, as the sun - obscured from my view - went down, first turning the Hornby railway like pine clad hills a yellowed shade of green before my favourite bit, still out of my sight, the sun would turn red just ...