Sunday, October 19, 2008

My Fantastic Xinjiang Trip

I loved my holiday trip to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China, 2 weeks ago. Besides the beautiful scenary at Buerjin and Kanas River and making a lot of interesting new friends, I had quite a bit of fun, ridding a (very smart and tame) horse by myself up to a waterfall, a camel for the mandatory tourist photos and driving a 4-wheel terrain vehicle at the beautiful and scenic Ghost Town (so named because of the sand dunes that are naturally formed by wind movements - you need a lot of creativity to imagine the sand dunes as demons and ghosts).

At the Wuyi night bazaar in Urumqi, I ate mutton, grilled fish and other seafood from the road stalls and quite a fair bit of fried silk worm cocoons as well. That night I ended up with swollen eyes and a blocked nose as a result of a food allergy or food poisoning (I was very thankful that I could still breathe through my mouth otherwise there would be more adventures to the local hospital). As my mom was saying back home, why did I have to eat 8 pieces of the insect when 1 would do to try the taste (Ans: I did not want to waste so much food).

I bought dried raisins and walnuts but my favourite purchase is this brand new pair of velveteen mid-heeled Mary-Janes from a stall at the Wuyi night bazaar. The shoes are labelled as "gong yi bu xie" i.e. handcrafted fabric shoes. It's comfortable and so economically priced that I didn't have the heart to bargain for it (only S$3). This will look wonderful on its own or with a pair of colorful striped socks. I only regretted not buying a few more pairs since I've only seen them more commonly as flats.

4 comments:

hxian said...

i went to the same places and i agree, its a GORGEOUS place! Did you go into the mountains at kanas too? I remember they didnt allow us to use soap to prevent pollution. Good call! One of my best holidays ((:

Sheryl W said...

Yes we did, it was beautiful! They didn't say anything about the soap but it was a strictly no-smoking place so the air was super fresh!

Amanda and May said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amanda and May said...

this is the first time i've read your blog, but i just want to comment - i went to those places in summer '06 as well! the "road-side" fruits were amazing.. though not to mention their slightly weird cuisines such as horse mlik yoghurt bits but i've got to say the environment was too beautiful