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Published: August 25th 2007
Alright, I am currently sitting in an internet cafe attached to my hotel in Jiayuguan and want to try to update what I have done in the last week. After we left Urumqi, we went to Turpan and spent one night with the local Uigur people. Turpan is known for its grapes and I got to experience them first hand. When we first arrived in the village, they had us go out to the grape fields and pick grapes from the low hangin arbors. They are probably the sweetest grapes I have ever tasted in my life. For the rest of the afternoon we played with the village children who were fascinated by our digital cameras. After about 20 minutes, almost all the kids had a camera and were taking pictures like mad. It was amazing how quickly they learned what all the buttons did, much more quickly then it took me. My camera had over 200 pictures taken on it in less then 3 hours, many were close-ups of peoples faces. That evening they had dinner for us that was absolutely amazing and a dance performance and later that night we had a big party under the grape arbor attached
to one of the host family's homes. We slept outside under the grape arbor where it was cooler and it was probably one of the most gorgeous places I have ever slept in my life.
After that we stayed at another hotel, not quite as nice as our first one, and did some more shopping. It is really fun to watch some people bargain as they have gotten really good at it. I'm starting to get tired of eating skewers, but the food is pretty decent. I have found that the best food is found in the most back alley, dirty establishments that speak no english and have no pictures on the menus. It is usually convenient to have a Chinese speaker with you at these places, though. I have not gotten tired of Chinese food yet, but I do miss breakfast, as the Chinese like to eat pickled and salted foods for breakfast. I've been living off of hard boiled eggs and some sort of rolls that I dip in sugar. The hotel we are staying at now has fried eggs and some cakes and rice, so it's much better.
We took our first overnigt train from Urumqi to
Dunhuang and it was quite the experience. I got the top of the three bunks, but it was much better than sitting in a bus trying to sleep.
So far, I have also seen the Thousand Buddha caves that have the world's third tallest Buddha in it, along with some amazing cave paintings that are hundreds and thousands of years old. We have also visited the Karez irrigation system museum, seen some Mosques, slept on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert and taken camel rides at dawn to see the sunrise from the top of the tallest dune. Right now we are in Jiayuguan where I skipped the trip to the Great Wall and a fort so I could sleep and get over a cold. Tonight we take another train to Xiahe where we are going to stay on the Tibetan Plateau. I will try to post some pictures when I get back to Beijing as I'm not sure how long it will take if I try it here in the internet cafe. Zai Jian!
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Allison
non-member comment
yay Sabrina!!
I'm so glad you finally posted on here, I've been waiting to hear from you. It sounds like you're having a good time. I hope you're taking lots of pictures that you can post and show me when you get home. I also hope that you will be seeing the Great Wall again soon because that's a wonderful experience, and differs greatly depending on where you go along the wall. Feel better so you don't miss anything else!