Today, we made a blitzkrieg tour around the Urumqi area. We started with a trip to the Xinjiang Museum, known for its very well-preserved mummified corpses. These aren’t Egyptian mummies with their elaborate wrappings, but corpses dried out by the baking heat and salty clay of the desert. Interestingly enough, not all the mummies were [...]
A brief interlude to mention that about 1/3 of websites seem to be blocked from China, including most of the major blogging sites (Livejournal for example), Wikipedia, etc. A lot of the blockage seems entirely random - I can’t see how online fiber arts shops would offend the Chinese censors, for example. At any rate, [...]
After a 13-hour flight, we landed in Shanghai (China’s eastern shore) and promptly set off the next day for Urumqi, a desert city in the far northwest of China. It took roughly 5.5 hours to fly the length of China, and between that and the jet lag, we were thoroughly exhausted upon our arrival.
The [...]
Just a quick note from Shanghai - we stopped here overnight after a 13-hour (!) flight, and are flying out to Urumqi right after lunch. We’re staying in a four-star hotel, which means INTERNET ACCESS in the rooms! I’m not used to traveling in such luxury. Usually I duck out to an [...]
I’ll be taking off for China in about five and a half hours. Fully packed, and the traveling tiger is (of course) with me - I bought him a little companion in the airport (a fellow tiger) and will be traveling with her as well.
Not much to say, anticipating lots of fun on this [...]