Urumqi

I checked in to the Maitian hostel with no problems—be warned, it is a bit hard for taxi drivers to find as it is down a side street. Bill was not lying when he said there were soldiers and tanks everywhere. There are. Not tank tanks, but white APCs and a lot of guys with assault rifles. There are police and “SWAT” checkpoints everywhere. The “SWAT” guys are actually just out of shape, unarmed, underemployed people half of whom are asleep at the switch (literally). If you’ve got a bag, though, you will be searched at the entrance to absolutely everything (including the park). In terms of things to do, there is not much. The Grand Bazaar is worth a visit, but the part I went to that boasted of “handicrafts” was actually full of the same goods pumped out some factory. I’m sure they were “handicrafts” because the cost of labor at said factory is so low. 

Bazaar

Uighur culture is definitely present, though, both here and in the city at large. The Xinjiang regional museum is quite nice with reasonable English descriptions, as is the Red Hill park with the temples and towers. A note about the latter: if you draw a crappy picture of the tower on a piece of paper and give to a taxi while pointing in the general direction of the park, they’ll understand. Not really much beyond that, except to sit around and eat meatsticks. That being said, there are some tasty meatsticks around. I had a bunch of lamb ones before walking by a truck full of sheep next to a butcher shop and then I realized that whatever I had was certainly fresh. Also, Maitian didn’t have any TP that I could see, so I bought my own (this is a generally good idea in this area). I’ve spent the morning trying to get the internet and VPNs to cooperate (they don’t, so I’m going to have to dump all these posts at once). Also, the plan to cross into Kyrgyzstan is getting increasingly complex, as the Irkeshtam crossing is apparently closed on weekends (when I planned to cross). 

Captain Meatsticks and his trusty grill

Urumqi: A bazaar, a museum, a couple of parks, lots of excellent meatsticks. 

The park