France Day 2 - Steaks and Fire

We checked into a hotel room just outside the old town that had a double bed plus a bunk bed. I love bunk beds!

We had dinner at a restaurant called le Piqu’Boeuf (I think), which had a central theme of cow. Even the door handle was a big cow horn. Inside, there was a gigantic fireplace burning what looked like the trunks of small trees or entire branches of a large one. After we ordered, we realized that there was a grill in front of the flames, and a chef was making all the meat and stuff there, as well as large baked potatoes. 

Escargots in garlic cream

Andouillette and baked potato

Green salad w/ foie gras

Chicken in mustard sauce + fries

Local cheeses and spiced bread

Crème brûlée

France Day 1 - Kerfuffle

We got off the plane at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris sometime in the morning. I didn’t really get any rest on the flight because there were these two extremely noisy children sitting right in front of me. The food was pretty good though; I thought it was much better than the Air Canada food I’ve tasted. When were lining up for customs at the airport, we heard a “security announcement” regarding a grey suitcase that had been left unattended in some area of the terminal. When we were waiting for our baggage claim, we saw that there were a large number of customs personnel and even a few soldiers in camouflage with rifles standing around. Travellers were cleared out of the area and kept gathered at a safe distance. We only had to wait a very short time before they gave the all clear and we could proceed into the terminal. I caught a glimpse of the questionable suitcase, or what was left of it, as officials were piling pieces of it into a large plastic bag. I guess they cut it up to see what was inside.

Some dude sleeping, and a coffee
vending machine

France Day 1 - Car and Driver

We got our rental car from the airport, and spent a little time in the parking lot with its tiny parking spaces trying to figure out the car. On a side note, the car parked beside ours was a Panda. Our car does some cool things like auto parking brake, mirrors that swivel themselves in when you leave the car, and windshield wipers that automatically turn on when it starts to rain. There’s also a DVD drive, assumably so you can watch videos on the little screen in the dashboard, and also what looks like a phone function.

We had a GPS that we borrowed from one of my dad’s relatives, but while I was still trying to figure out how it worked, we got a little bit lost just getting out of the airport. The roads were overlapping and strange, and we even managed to accidentally go into an underground parking lot and had to navigate our way out. Oops.

Once we were on the highway, we drove a little way but got stuck in traffic where the police had temporarily blocked off the road. When things cleared, we drove past an accident where a car had completely flipped over, and bags of groceries were scattered at the side of the road---I saw squished onions everywhere.

As we drove on the highway, we passed by stuff too quickly for me to actually get it on camera, but I saw some interesting things like trees with slender branches and puffs of moss or vines hanging from them like something out of Avatar, three large ruined buildings that looked straight out of the Medieval era, and a random little tree by the side of the highway all by itself sporting beautiful pink flowers. 

France Day 1 - Auxerre

We arrived at the small town of Auxerre just in time to have lunch at a restaurant in the town square. Since it was Sunday, most stores in the town were closed for Sabbath, but a few restaurants were open and filled with locals. The one we went to was really nicely decorated, with coloured Plexiglas panels everywhere to make the interior quite vibrant. We had some pizza, salad and soup that tasted lovely, and our waiter did try really hard with his English.

Salad with some kind of meatstuff

coffeee

"Soup of the Season"...looked like green
mush but tasted good.

Thin crust pizza with meat and an egg

cute little European cars...

After lunch we took a walk through the old city to have a look around. A bunch of little kids passed by us, gawking at the rare Asian specimens. There were some whimsical little statues here and there, engraved with lines from poems, and then a huge sundial/clock mounted on an archway in the middle of town.

We stopped in a local cathedral called St. Etienne, pushing open a small but heavy wooden door and stepping into the musty silence. There were two other tourists wandering around in there, but the rest of it was a suffocating sort of emptiness in which I could hear my footsteps echoing. I even managed to creep into this old, dark crypt thing with a sarcophagus and an inscription on the wall putting the year of death in the 1400s. It was honestly the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in any of the old churches I’ve visited, because it was a dark little niche I had to stoop to get into and there were remnants of old candle wax dripped everywhere with dead leaves and petals on the ground.

We emerged from there and went back down to the riverside where our car was parked. There was a delicately narrow little bridge from which we were able to take some pictures of the “skyline” of the city. After that, we started our drive to Dijon and I fell asleep immediately once I was back in the car. 

France Day 1 - Rainy Sunday Night

We checked into a hotel in Dijon that was clean and tidy, but rather old. Notably, the elevator was epic and about the size of my closet at home, with a door you had to open and close manually. We put our luggage down and headed out to do a little exploring. 

There’s a small palace of sorts in this town, and quaint cobblestone streets that looked convincingly moody in the rainy weather. We located a Subway, a McDonalds, an H&M, a Claire’s, and several other establishments reminiscent of America. There were lots of local French stores too, like one that just sells mustard, but nothing was really open. 


After an hour or so of ambling through the twisting streets, we settled into a restaurant called l’Imprimerie. The interior design was awesome, with old books lining every wall, an old-fashioned printing press in the middle, and fake newspaper hanging from the ceiling. 

Baked Potato

Escargots

French Onion Soup

Beef Tartare

Coconut and Chocolate Ice Cream

新疆 Epilogue

This was a trip of learning to be alone, of appreciating the company of my friends whom I missed so much, and of survival in an unfamiliar place. 


On this trip, time flowed strangely. The sun goes down at around ten, and we often didn't have dinner or stop for the night until midnight so that we could cover the maximum distance during our waking hours. This means that I usually never got to sleep until long after 1 or 2 am. During the day, I was drowsy, and slept ridiculous amounts in the long car rides. Often, it felt like time passed by too quickly without me noticing. I would wake up to find that hours had passed, feeling like I had only dozed off for several minutes. Sometimes I would get back into the car after what felt like a leisurely afternoon stroll at some sightseeing destination, only to realize with a start that it was nearing 8pm, not 3 as I had imagined, with the sun swollen yellow in the sky. Then there were times in the car, in between naps, where I felt impossibly 100% awake and could not possibly sleep a second more. The dusty unfamiliar landscape would slide by alarmingly fast as the driver sped along the backcountry roads, but the minutes would tick by at a snail's pace. I felt as though I never could stay awake for more than three hours at a time, and never was allowed to sleep for more than 5. If it weren't for the photographs to remind me of the vivid realities of the sights I had seen, my memories of the trip would be only hazy at best, as I felt like I sleepwalked through the whole ordeal. 


There was an element of culture shock, of course, and I felt isolated as my uncle and cousin were in their own country, my dad was returning to it, and I was always left on the outside as the little girl who could not understand. My grasp of the language was often misunderstood, and this made for awkward spots where I could understand everything they were saying about me-- the fact that I was a foreigner, a woman, a child --but I was not able to respond at all. It did help me to feel a bit more confident in my comprehension abilities,  I suppose.  


Overall, I found this place to be unnerving and repulsive on some occasions, but immensely pure and beautiful on many others. I would come again, on my own terms though, and hopefully a little bit more awake. 

新疆 Day 7 - Foggy Mountains

In the morning the rain let up, and we drove up the mountain. Then we switched from a large tour bus to a golf-cart-like thing to travel the narrower roads. Yesterday’s clouds still lingered on the hills, floating along through the trees as though it were a living thing. The grassy hillsides were curiously ridged, like a fork pressed into cookie dough. Our guide informed us that these were created by herds of sheep being driven across to new grazing grounds. Horse, sheep and cows dotted the landscape here and there, with local dwellings set up along the way. At one stop, a crowd of local children pulling tiny goats on leashes came up to the touring vehicles. The goats were dolled up with brightly coloured ribbons and sashes, and the children with their shrill voices called out to the tourists offering photo ops in exchange for small change.

It was quite chilly on the mountain, the cold made worse by the dampness all over. By the time we returned to our car, I had lost feeling from my feet to my calves, and my fingers could barely move. We went for lunch, at the same restaurant for the third time, and warmed up with our final meal on the tour—complete with my favourite spicy roasted lamb. 

so cold.

新疆 Day 7 - Dreams and Departure

On our way to the airport, we stopped to take pictures by a golden field of wheat. I was my first time seeing wheat in real life up close. After this trip, I have two new things to dream of doing in life: to run through a wheat field and stand in the middle; and to do the same in a sunflower field.

At the airport, something went wrong: They had combined two flights into one without taking into account all the people, so us checking in so last minute left us without seats. We were informed that there was nothing to be done about the flight, so we would have to wait for the next and then stay at Urumqi for one night since we would have missed out connecting flight back to Guangzhou. 


To atone for their incompetence, they let us into the "VIP" area, but it was really just a musty little room with mustard yellow couches and a tiny TV which, for reasons unknown to me, my uncle used to watch infomercials presented in a local language that none of us understood.

新疆 Day 3 – Stranded

They let us into the lounge/waiting area labelled VIP, but it was really just a musty little room with mustard yellow leather couches and an ancient TV (which for some strange reason my uncle used for watching a channel that only seemed to show Uygur infomercials). I ended up going for a little walking tour of the tiny little airport, and had a look at some of the souvenirs they were selling. I finally bought a pack of playing cards because I didn’t have any on the trip before.

 

Our boarding call finally came and we made our way onto the least populated airplane I have ever seen. I wonder how much of a waste it is to fly across a province with like 10 people on the plane. Once we got back to Urumqi, we wandered around the airport until we found a service desk that knew what to do with us. I was frustrated because the light board displaying flight statuses said that our plane was still boarding…which meant that we probably technically would’ve still made it on. In any case, we were herded onto a shuttle bus (again, ten people riding a full-sized tour bus, but of course China’s not that eco-friendly I suppose) and taken to a hotel owned by the airport, aptly named something like The Petroleum Hotel. We would have to stay in Urumqi for a night in order to catch the next flight to Guangzhou. 

 

新疆 Day 7 – Night Market

We heard of the night market that happened to be going on at the time, so we hailed a taxi to get there. On our way out, the concierge girl gave us an interesting tip. Apparently in Xin Jiang, only females can sit in the front seat of the taxi. They’re scared you’ll attack them…and apparently females are too soft to do that ;) Anyway that’s how I ended up getting shotgun while my uncle, cousin and dad were squished into the back. It made me a little happy, because typically I’d be shafted to the back automatically.

bahaha..

We had dinner at the night market, where the vendors had a vast array of food items we could choose from and have them roast on the grill for us. The meat was pretty good, and we even got some quail. There was also some other rather questionable stuff that we didn’t dare to try…

crayfish..

ew...

After that we walked through the market and looked at the other stands selling things like clothes, decorative items, toys, automobile paraphernalia, and fruit. Parts of Xin Jiang province are well known for production of fruit, because the climate is suited to growing things like melons and grapes. I was able to eat the sweetest little green grapes I had ever tasted in my life, and we also got to try some other interesting locally grown fruits. 

Those yellow things in the middle shouldn't even be called fruits,
I think they are actually some kind of squash >_>