Tu-Ha Petroleum Urumqi

... 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!

... 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 ...

Finally it was time to go back to Changji. We stopped at a couple of shops (including a farm for deer antlers, boo hiss) on the way back, but arrived a lot earlier than I expected. The tour to Kanas was fun, I'm glad I went on it. Not only was the scenery spectacular, but I was forced to speak in Chinese for the whole time and I learnt how to split melon and pumpkin seeds fairly quickly, thanks to the auntie sitting across the aisle from Lirong and I who kept showering us in the damn ...

... 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 ...

... people in expensive designer outfits or jeans and T shirts. Interestingly, we saw very few fully veiled women in Urumqi.<br><br>In central Urumqi, Buiks, Mercedes and a huge array of large four wheel drive cars revealed a prosperity enjoyed by the wealthier inhabitants of Urumqi. In fact it was staggering to see the number of extremely expensive cars and the number of designer wear shops and huge cosmetic and perfume sectors of the Urumqi department stores ...

Friday, September 28th In truth, most of this day was spent either in Jiaohe, a long-abandoned city on a plateau above the intersection of two rivers near Turpan or on a small bus between Turpan and Urumqi (pronounced something like oo ROOM chee). However, I had to choose some location for the Travelpod map pin, and this was my only chance to choose Urumqi because we were on a plane for Kashgar before the end of the night. In ...

In the morning my brother and i grabbed a bowl of Japanese Ramen at a restaurant near his house. It was pretty good, and in hindsight I'm glad I ordered that extra salad because it would be the last one I would have for a very, very long time. Shanghai food in general I found to be pretty good ... it's rapidly approaching Hong Kong standards and I think that's the goal. From the pudong development to overall prices, it seems like Shanghai is determined to best Hong ...

... 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 ...