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 >_>

新疆 Day 6 - Into the Mist

We woke up to a gray, drizzling morning. After a discussion at the breakfast table, it was decided that it wasn’t worth going out to see anything because in this weather none of the sights would be very nice. I persuaded my dad to sneak out with me anyway, while everybody else retreated to their rooms. We went a little way out from the hotel to the tourist area where we took some interesting pictures of what looked like the Chinese equivalent of totem poles. We didn’t get very far because the rain came down harder and harder, and my pant legs were slowly getting soaked due to the hem dragging a bit on the ground.

What my dad does on rainy days xD

 



We reconvened at lunchtime after I’d spent the rest of my morning folding paper in my room (a la Chatter at Btowne ;D). Afterwards, we all went for a leisurely ramble around the outskirts of town, but it was rainy and the mountains were all covered with clouds. We went through the tourist area with displays of the local minorities’ cultural stuff. 

the honting ground, the house race track, and the untranslatable.

While walking along the mainly empty roadway, I was literally bored silly (much to my uncle’s intense concern and horror).

WHEE

I paid an old Kazakh man 5RMB to take a picture with his eagle. It was actually massive and extremely heavy. Good thing I’m so TANK ;)

aww yeee.

Soon after that, a thick fog descended upon us like a blanket being drawn up over a bed. Mist fascinated me, because we don’t get much of it in Canada, and I got a few ghostly pictures before hurrying back to the hotel to change into dry clothes again.

 

Dinner was uneventful for the most part. We ate in the same restaurant that we’d had lunch in, it being the only “proper” restaurant in the area. I tried “horse milk wine”, which was a sort of yogurt flavoured white drink that supposedly has similar alcohol content to beer, made from fermented horse’s milk. As we were getting ready to leave, a table full of locals started to sing traditional songs as they passed some kind of intense alcohol around and raised glasses to the elders. That was kind of beautiful. 

新疆 Day 5 - Walnuts and Wildflowers

We drove all morning until we reached some place in the middle of nowhere. Taking a shuttle bus into the valley, we were dropped off at the start of a trail. It’s a mountain that grows wild walnuts, valuable for Chinese medicine. We hiked up a long trail of very steep steps all the way to the top of the mountain. There were apricot trees all along the way, so our hike was fragrant and accompanied by the lazy buzzing of insects. At the top of the trail, one can look down upon the entire valley, which is actually a spot where a mountain range splits in two like a Y-shape, creating a little triangular dip in between.

Yay! I survived the hike!

The view wasn’t that nice, I suppose, because the sky was hazy and the mountain was not as beautiful as the other we had seen. Interestingly, the wildflowers we spotted growing by the path were almost identical to those we have in Canada. I think the latitude is around the same, and many of the plants are remarkably similar. They are often bigger though, and more lush, but I'm not really sure why.  

On our trek back down, which was much easier than the way up of course, we ran into these locals. They were very friendly and open to us taking pictures of them. Aren’t their clothes wonderful? There were also these random tourists who look like Russians but spoke some Chinese dialect, also very happy to pose for us.

happy old ladies

no creeper...

Ominous warning for hikers

On the way down

新疆 Day 5 - Owned.

We stopped for more photography at a village in a valley with a river running through it. I grabbed a new bottle of water from the package as I got out of the car because I had finished my bottle from the morning. We had been buying those 24-packs of bottles from the supermarket since tap water isn’t drinkable and we have no means to boil and store enough for a day. Anyway I had the bottle in my bag while going out along the river with my dad to take pictures. On the way back to the car, I was thirsty, so I took out the bottle of water, opened it, and took a big swallow. It occurred to me that it tasted different from my water this morning, almost sickly sweet, so I immediately spat out the second mouthful. I remembered suddenly that this was supposedly a brand new bottle, an yet there had been no clicking sound of the seal breaking when I twisted it open.

“HOMGSH DAD THIS IS LAKE WATER T___T”

My dad had a sip to taste it, and we compared it to the water in his bottle, and began to laugh uncontrollably. Walking back to the car after emptying the bottle on the rocks, I kind of started retching and feeling a little gross, but maybe it was just a psychological effect. I spat out the taste as well as I could, and my dad told everybody back at the car what had happened. The guide died of laughter, and the driver told us he’d probably put the filled bottle from the lake back into the water pack thinking it was just a new bottle that had fallen out. 


In other news, Dad's cool picture of the place where this all happened is here.