Super 8 Hotel Urumqi Ba Yin He

... a cold a blustery autumn day. We were glad we had gloves and scarves! There were a few families out walking, and more appeared as the sun came out. <br> <br>There was some confusion about our hotel. The one we were supposed to stay at had been pulled down a year ago! It was half way through a complete re-build.<br><br>But we were 'upgraded' to a 5* hotel, which was fine - nothing special; a typical 'business' hotel - could have been ...

... 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!

... Next on the list was drinking slushies and beer in the park, then KTV. We figured an hour of KTV would probably do the trick, but ended up yowling away for about 3 instead. Finally, after noodles and beer we parted company. I was extremely happy to have met Ma Jun and sad to see him go. The next day, LX and his uncle took me to the airport. I was already out of sorts in the morning. I had had a fantastic time in Xinjiang. I had met so many lovely people ...

... 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.

... enough money to the tour guide fund! Seriously, we paid almost 100RMB for something that later cost me 5.8 RMB in Jinan. And I got a lot more of it in Jinan!!! Going to the temple ended up being a double edged sword. We went in, and sat while the priest chanted, blessed us and then sprayed water over us to get rid of bad vibes. The priest then told people to stand up one by one and gave us some advice after doing stuff to our hands. LX got an extra long lecture and a piece of paper ...

... and again as a restful stopover on our journey home from Pakistan. We love the city for its atmosphere, friendly people, intriguing Uighur markets and for the wonderfully comfortable and fabulous Hoi Tak Hotel. It has always made for us an easy and restful place to stay (little did we know that just two weeks after our stay there on our return journey the dreadful and deadly riots broke out between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese. And they happened ...

This is a small escape from the prison since I'm on holiday from my slavery work. I've planned to apply 2 to 3 days of break during the 19 days of my boss on his dame "back home vacation". Everybody should notice that his vacation was on my 23rd day arrived the factory. I didn't even fully understand all the equipment inside the water and wastewater treatment system as well as all the other managerial personal. That is straightly a hell to me.

... china. wait, I have to be careful about saying that- I mean the old, bland, communist apartment buildings, not beautiful wooden hutongs! the town center has mosques and a cool market place. my driver, Feng, took me to THE place to eat lamb, and it was actually probably the best I have ever eaten. instead of the wooden splinter with razor blade thin pieces of lamb that you get in beijing, xinjiang ...