Oct. 2- Turpan Sites and Bus to Urumqi

This time we got woken up on the train at 7:30 and had to pack our bags and change to get off the train. I was on the top bunk and found it very difficult to get up and down to my bags. We got off in Turpan which is like the Muslim District in Xi'an but a whole city. They call the Muslim population in China, Weegors. The day we arrived in Turpan they had just ended a fast and it was the first day they were allowed to eat. We drove to a local restaurant for breakfast and I would have given my arm for some waffles or pancakes or even cereal. Eating fried rice for breakfast gets a little old after a while. After we ate we headed out on our tour of Turpan tourist sites. The first site we saw was the Gaochang Ancient City. We had to get off the bus and take donkey carts to the inner part of the city which was a lot of fun. Juan was on my cart and dropped his camera case so our driver stopped while he ran to go get it. The donkey behind us however didn't register that we had stopped so it kept coming and practically ran up onto our cart and it's head hit Jess W. in the back. I couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the trip to the inner city.  Our donkey started to drag towards the end and we decided he wasn't used to carrying a bunch of fat Americans. I decided to call him Chapetto :)

The city was extremely well preserved which surprised me because the walls are made from dirt and stone. Our tour guide said the weather doesn't wear it down because they only get 16 millimeters of rain every year, just the wind wears it down. We hung out there for a while and then hopped on the cart again and drove on the bus to the Flaming Mountain. We went through a little museum detailing the old story about the Flaming Mountain and then a few of us hiked out towards the base of the mountain. It took about 15 minutes to walk to a little hill in front of the base of the mountain. Climbing up that hill was a little difficult in flip-flops. I could never get a good foot hold and kept sliding all over but I pressed stubbornly on. Once we got to the top we looked down and you could see for miles. We climbed, I slid, back down the hill and walked back to the bus. My feet were completely red from the dirt so that made me feel even more clean. 

We ate lunch which took longer than expected so we didn't get to see all the sites in the afternoon that we were supposed to. We did go to a local family's home which has a grape valley behind their house. They grow several different kinds of grapes and make homemade raisins. Their family had lived in the same house for 40 years and they sell their grapes to tourists and to local markets. After we sat and ate some of their raisins and honey melons, the best I've ever had by the way, we walked around their house and the grape valley. The view from their roof was beautiful and walking around under the grape ceilings was really cool. We picked grapes from the vines and ate them. The small green ones were sooooo good! The family was very nice and hospitable. After about an hour and a half we got on the bus and began the 3 hour drive to Urumqi. We watched "Transformers" on the way there but I was more focused on the scenery. The mountains and rivers along the road were extremely alluring. All I wanted to do was hop out of the bus with my small bag and walk with no direction or purpose, just get lost for while. I found myself feeling this way more and more as the trip went on.

When we got to our hotel in Urumqi everyone made a beeline for the shower. I don't think I've ever felt so dirty in my life and my feet were absolutely disgusting! Selina and I headed to dinner at a Korean restaurant with 5 of the boys. Halfway through the meal our waitress came by and told us that if we ordered 30 kuai worth of more food they would give us a free bottle of Korean alcohol. Being the responsible people that we are, we ordered 30 kuai worth of more food :) After dinner, and our Korean alcohol, we went to a local bar and sat for about an hour and played the dice game like in "Pirates of the Caribbean 3." I was very good at it too. We came back to the hotel and hung out in Ryan's room for a while and then we went to bed around 1 am. It was a very good and laid back night.