Our day out in Xining!

Hey Everyone,

Yesterday was a good day, namely because we weren't stuck at the complex (and we got another western breakfast, egg sandwiches, hot milk and haw jam)!

 Matthew took us into Xining to show us some of the city. We started with Xining Plaza, a massive square near to Matthew's office; it was filled with decorations left over from the new year celebrations, including a massive fish, some elephants and a few Rubix cubes!

Next we were taken up to Matthew's office (on 21st floor of one of the skyscrapers over looking the plaza) and told to rest until lunch. Baring in mind we had only been out for an hour and lunch wasn't for another 2 and a half hours, we got understandably restless! However we managed to keep ourselves occupied with some deep discussions and a few games of word association! I wasn't feeling very well, a mixture of headache, stomach ache and over tiredness I think, so I was a bit quiet.

Lunch was really nice, they cooked us dumplings! They were very yummy!!

After lunch we headed out to find an import shop as Will was desperate to find some English comforts. We ventured further into the city on the buses with our escorts Michael Li and a woman who I can't remember the name of (I know her Chinese name means Swallow though!). I was surprised by how big Xining actually is! There are lots of pretty little parks too! We didn't find any import food but we explored the city which was good. We walked up the market street which was certainly eye opening; on one side we had butchers stalls that had meat of all sorts hanging up and on the other side we had loads of fishmongers. However, unlike in the UK, the fishmongers keep the fish alive until they are sold; the fish are kept in awful conditions, usually crammed into small tanks, it was actually quite distressing.

Next stop was dinner in a small little diner, from my experience you should never judge a restaurant by its appearance some of the best Chinese food I have eaten has come from grubby, tiny diners! This was no exception! We started off with some Qinghai tea, which is more of a salty broth than anything and certainly an acquired taste (not for me), next we were given some noodles in a tomatoey sauce and some sizzling mutton with sesame seeds, both were delicious. I wish I was feeling better so I could have eaten more.

Our day didn't end there either, next we were treated to KTV (Karaoke TV), an extremely popular pass time in China. At first we were a bit uneasy seeing as karaoke is usually only done when under the influence of a lot of alcohol but we loved it! We got our own room and our guide bought us a couple of CRATES of beer! There were only 11 of us in total and only 7 of us were drinking! It was so much fun! Highlights of the night were definitely 'Circle of Life', 'All the Small Things', 'Man, I feel like a woman', various FIVE songs and some rather interesting Chinese songs. A very enjoyable evening! Michael Li put us into a taxi home and we were very happy, until the taxi driver stopped the car and shouted mandarin at us and tried to turn the car around. We tried negotiating but he was having none of it so we got out of the car. The taxi drove off leaving Will, Mike, Alex and I in the middle of no where, on a pitch black night... We called Michael Li and he came and picked us up, thank goodness! It was not a nice experience! Taxi drivers here are really terrible.

Michael Li and I