National Day

October 1 is National Day in China.  I think it's similar to our Independence Day.  They celebrate for the whole week though, which is good for us because that means a whole week with no school.  So what do you do with a whole week off from school?  You travel and see China.  We went on an organized tour for the English Teachers here from BYU that are living in all areas of China.   A couple of other foreign teachers had gotten wind of it and asked if they could also go.  Of course! There were about 40 people in our group.  We flew first to Urumqi in the far northwest part of China, in the Xinjiang Province.  We went to a museum of the Ughur region and then Muslim Bazaar with some great shopping.  The next day we took a bus to Turpan, Xinjiang.  China has a lot of people with a lot of huge cities, but it also has miles and miles of open territory.  The western part is quite mountainous and desserty.  If those are words!  It was interesting to drive and see China through different eyes.  In Turpan we visited some ancient cities, Jiaohe and Gaochang.  The history and age of this country is mind-boggling.  We're talking thousands of years old.  The people here are much poorer and their housing is---I don't even have words.  Only pictures show a particle of their life styles.  They grow lots of grapes and provide most of China with their supply of many varieties of raisins.  This area is considered an oasis as it sits right in the middle of a huge dessert and yet they are able to grow a mountain of grapes.  We also visited a beautiful mosque and an ancient underground water irrigation system. That was pretty impressive. They have a famous mountain, Flaming Mountain where we stopped for a short period and learned about the "Monkey King".    From here we took a night train to Dunhaung, in Gansu Province.  This city is more of a modern city but is only 188,000 people.  So in China standards, it's quite small.  In Dunhaung they have the famous sand dunes--the Singing Mountain (Mingsha Shan) and the Mogao Grottos. These are 1000 caves dug into the rock cliffs with Buddha statues inside each one, spanning over a period of 1000 years beginning about 360 AD.  These two sights were my favorite.  We road camels here at the Singing Mountain.  We would have loved to had more time to slide down the slopes and hear the "singing",  but when you're with a group you can only do so much.  We flew the next day to Xi'an where we left the group since this is our home town and have been to the sights they were visiting.  We joined up with them the next night for a dumpling dinner and a show depicting beautiful dancing telling stories from the Tang Dynasty. It was a great trip and we were ready to be "home".

Urumqi Museum -- 3000 year old corpses.  They believe these are so well preserved because the area is so dry.  The painting is what they believe the previous mummy might have looked like.  They painted the eyes of the babies and children to keep away evil spirits.  It would work for me!  😉

Er Dao Qiao Market

 

Miles and miles of windmills.

Mile after mile of new construction.  You see this EVERYWHERE in China.

 Ruins from the ancient city Jiaohe.

The remains and rebuild of a mosque in the ancient city of Gaochang.  

Each window housed a Buddha.

These are green houses that they have throughout the area.  Miles of them.  One half is made of a mound of clay.  Then they plant their crops on one side and cover with plastic which has a framework to hold it up!  Very ingenious.

Ancient underground irrigation system.  They got the water from the mountain and used the down hill slope to carry it where they needed it.  Pure clear cold water. 

 Buying home dried raisins from the locals in the Tuyuogou Valley village.

 This is a baby sleeping in this dirt floor home while her mother was making bread in their coal burning stove in the other room.

 Looking down into the village.

 This cute little guy was trying to bring his bike up this long slope of stairs where his mother was.  We gave him a hand.  He was very appreciative.

 Cemetery in this village.  The big structures are for those that were of some importance in the village such as the mayor.  This is Mark Poulsen, one of the teachers with us.

A little girl helping out--sweeping the dirt.  😂😍 Poor, Humble but very Happy people.

Another picture of the cemetery.

 That night we took the "soft" sleeper train to Liuyuan before taking a bus to Dunhuang. Kim all ready for bed on the top bunk.

Robert Briggs and his wife Julie shared our cabin with us.  The Briggs' are from Heber.

The next morning getting off the train. 

Our bus buddies.  All English teachers at several different universities in China.

These Chinese nationals have their cowboy hats and are ready to ride the camels.

Many of the Chinese were renting these "boots".  We think it's so they don't get their shoes full of sand.  Pretty smart.

 Going to get our camels!  There were sooooo many. 

 My camel's nose pin came out so it was no longer hooked to the caravan.  Our guide had to call someone to come put it back in.  It was not a pleasant experience and I felt really bad for my camel.  When our guide tried to stroke him so calm him down, he spit at her.  So now we know, camels really will spit at you. 

 Camel caravans all around.  These sand dunes were amazingly huge.

 And that sun was pretty hot.

People were walking up the sand here, then they slid down on little sleds.  Supposedly the sand sings when you slide down.  We didn't have time to do this but we would have loved to give it a try.  Thus they call this "Singing Sound" Mountain.

 It was a very bumpy ride but so much fun.

Some of our teacher friends.

This was our caravan.  Kaycee, Lorraine and Chuck.

Kim's camel was so pretty.  They're very furry camels.

An oasis in the desert.  There is a small lake off to the right.  It's shaped like a crescent moon--thus it's name, Crescent Moon Lake.

 The next day we went to the Mogao Grottoes.  1000 caves dug into the side of the cliff.  Each contains a painted Buddha made from the surrounding clay.  They were beautiful inside but we weren't allowed to take photos.

This was the largest cave and the Buddha inside completely filled it.  Very Fascinating.

This is half of our group. 

 This guy let me play his drum.  Haha!  It was pretty fun.

Our last stop was in Xi'an and since we live here and the parks/attractions were super crowded because it was National Holiday, we didn't go on the excursions.  But we did enjoy a yummy dumplings dinner and a dance show from the Tang Dynasty.  

This post has taken me 2 weeks to put together.  The internet is SO sporadic and our time is SO limited.  I'm horrible at blogging.  😧😢