Weekend with Florrie and Francesca ... Exploring Urumqi
Posted by Rebecca Lynch on Monday, March 12, 2012
After being back in Kuitun for a few weeks,I decided it was time for another visit to Bagang to see Florrie and Francesca. Saturday was spent having a relaxing day in Bagang, starting with movies and baozi, then having a walk through the market to see all the stalls coming back to life after hibernating for winter. It's the time of year now where the streets are getting buisier and everything's coming back to life making little walks more interesting. In the evening, we decided to treat ourselves by heading into Urumqi for dinner. Florrie took us to a Uighur restaurant which she'd been to before. It had really good food, the Uighur foods are all very different to the Chinese dishes, being meaty with lots of breads. Poor Francesca struggled, being vegetarian, but me and Florrie had 4 dishes between the two of us, kebabs, meat filled wraps, noodles (of course) and sweet pancakes ... yum yum. It was then a stop at Fubar where we were put on a table with a group of guys who spoke a little English, to experience a Shisha, which all bars in China have.
Less than an hour from Urumqi, the capitol of Xinjiang, weekends in Bagang are the perfect opportunity to do some exploring. Florrie and Francesca took to the Uighur district in Urumqi the following day. with different influences and religions, the buildings were very different, with mosques of all sizes dotted about. We walked through a market street which was lined with freshly backed breads, rices, meats and kebabs, as well as traditional Uighur stalls of clothing and jewelry. Walking down to the market we passed a small cart of live sheep, then a few meters away at the entrance of the market street was a stall where sheep meat hung and their heads lay on carpet, it's moments like this which still surprise me in China, but keep things interesting.
We stopped in a small restaurant for some traditional rice with carrot and beef. After taking a few pictures of the place, the cooks and their customers were taken in by getting their picture taken, and we had about 15 minutes of them posing for the camera. The Uighur people don't just have an interesting culture, but they also had lots of small cafe's within the district, which did the most amazing western puddings, a quick ice-cream and cookie sandwich and it was time to head back to Kuitun. I really enjoyed the weekend, and it was good seeing more of the culture which makes Xinjiang different from the rest of China.
Less than an hour from Urumqi, the capitol of Xinjiang, weekends in Bagang are the perfect opportunity to do some exploring. Florrie and Francesca took to the Uighur district in Urumqi the following day. with different influences and religions, the buildings were very different, with mosques of all sizes dotted about. We walked through a market street which was lined with freshly backed breads, rices, meats and kebabs, as well as traditional Uighur stalls of clothing and jewelry. Walking down to the market we passed a small cart of live sheep, then a few meters away at the entrance of the market street was a stall where sheep meat hung and their heads lay on carpet, it's moments like this which still surprise me in China, but keep things interesting.
We stopped in a small restaurant for some traditional rice with carrot and beef. After taking a few pictures of the place, the cooks and their customers were taken in by getting their picture taken, and we had about 15 minutes of them posing for the camera. The Uighur people don't just have an interesting culture, but they also had lots of small cafe's within the district, which did the most amazing western puddings, a quick ice-cream and cookie sandwich and it was time to head back to Kuitun. I really enjoyed the weekend, and it was good seeing more of the culture which makes Xinjiang different from the rest of China.