China

Jiayuguan, August 14th 2012

The houses I saw along the street captured my attention. This is my third time in China and fifth city, but I have never seen houses like these. Once I passed one with the front gate opened. Inside there are rows of houses. Maybe one clan lives in one compound or block.

This...

and this...

and a church! No time to roll down the window. Actually after realizing that I was in a Moslem region, my eyes had been searching for a mosque. Being so devoted to the Ramadhan month, where do these people pray? Instead, I find a church.

My driver dropped me off at my hotel. Our agreement was to be back at 4:00 PM and yet it was past five already. He did not complain. not even a sour face. I gave him a 25 CNY extra for his great service. He drove carefully and was not just kind, but made me feel secure being with him. He gave me his name card and told me to call whenever I come to Jiayuguan. Sure, I will!

First thing I wanted to do was taking pictures at the backyard which I had forgotten to take a picture of from my room this morning. The whole ground was covered with a colorful bed of roses. It would have been more beautiful from my room on the fifth floor.


On the other side of the yard there were other kinds of flowers...

... and fruit also! Peach?

Please do not steal the fruits?

This is still part of my hotel. A cozy place, isn't it?

The lobby entrance was also colored with flowers. How lovely.

It seemed ages after I last tasted coffee. I got this at a nearby shop.

Since my train to Turpan was still hours later, I decided to explore the city on a bus for the second time. However the bus didn't show up. So I just went on foot and afterwards discovered that the city buses I took yesterday had actually been winding round and round. The places that seemed far away from my hotel turned out to be just several blocks away.

My fascination of the houses in this city continued.

Jiayuguan seems to be city of walls. The Great Wall isn't just enough. Anything built, must be built of walls. Of course, you would say. Yeah, but in Jiayuguan, the wall of bricks must be made noticeable.

See? Again.

These ones are the most unique of all. What are these? The height is I guess not more than 2 meters. Maybe less. No window. Public toilet?

This must be the resident of the young generation who somehow have to stay in Jiayuguan but are bored of brick walls.

Then I walked to the market.



Drying chili!

Aye! This confirmed me that I had already entered the Moslem region. 清真 Halal. In fact I passed this restaurant yesterday, but didn't realize. I wanted to have dinner here, but it looked fancy.

I picked up a smaller restaurant without glass window or door which made it looked less scary. So here's my dinner, 5 CNY. It was 7:19 PM already, but the sun was still shining bright.

So why do I love Jiayuguan? In one word: peaceful.