"Winter Wonderland" (Marlene's Visit Part 1)

Those were the words Marlene used to describe Urumqi on our walk back to my flat after her arrival. Yay, I have a guest, even if her views on this city are slightly different to my own ;) Before I get too many raised eyebrows, Marlene's a fellow student of mine from back home, though she chose to spend this year in sunny (and temporarily cholera-ridden) Haikou, the capital city of Hainan Island in the south of China. (To be precise, off the coast of the mainland, but not Taiwan!) ... Most of the last five months has been a pleasant 25C for her, so arriving at 0100 on Sunday morning, the balmy -15C of Xinjiang was quite a shock, but fortunately not enough to put her off the place!

In the last two days I've done more than I probably do in an average week - that either says something about my extreme laziness, my empty routine, or the fact that when fresh eyes are present there is suddenly more to do and see. Following her arrival we got a taxi back to my place ... let me pause here to tell you about taxis from Chinese transport hubs:

1) When you step out of the airport (most commonly), there will be Chinese people trying to "advise" you not to take a taxi and instead come with them, because "you won't get ripped off, it will be cheaper than a taxi" - tell them NO THANK YOU. Lots.

2) When you get a taxi, it doesn't matter how fluently you speak in Chinese and know the local area (I have been here 5 months, I know exactly where I live thank you and I can tell the driver with 100% accuracy where I need / want to go, especially when that place is my HOUSE), they will just smile and nod and think "okay so he speaks Chinese" but assume you came in from another Chinese city, because you're at an airport. This is bad because he then thinks he can rip you off.

3) When the taxi driver pulls out of the airport, he might need payment for his entrance fee to the airport. This is usually quite cheap (5RMB or so), so even if he's ripping you off, it's not by much. However, the then thinks it's okay not to use the meter - even when you shout at him in Chinese to use it - instead, he "calls his boss" (yeah right, he rings his mate on the CB radio to tell them he has foreigners in his cab, ha ha), and says if he doesn't use the meter, you'll get a better deal. This can be avoided if you know how much a journey should cost and tell him that if he doesnt use the meter he will get just X RMB, the value it ought to be. Finally, yell at him, and make sure he understands in no uncertain terms that you want the meter ON, RUNNING, and that this is not an optional situation.

The chap eventually got the meter running properly (instead of in "scam" mode) and had a laugh about how I was no fool to the system and couldn't be tricked by him. Awww what a shame, buddy, I suppose you think this paints a beautiful picture of life in China when the first thing tourists encounter is one group after another of thieving bastards ...

So back to the main theme, we arrived at my flat around 0200, and were supposed to have hot chocolate and go to bed, but of course ended up talking until about 0430 ... c'est la vie. A lazy morning followed, and I think we were finally out of the house by 1300, to eat lunch (丁丁炒面 for anyone remotely interested) and then onto the post office via a card shop (Mum I have sent Nana a card, I apologise if it is late and I definitely apologise for the conduct of China Post who made me mess up the outside of the envelope because writing an address (or even a return address!!!) is not allowed in red according to their "regulations" - one of these days I am going to go postal (excuse pun) on them and their crappy regulations that mess up EVERYTHING). From the post office we went to a China Mobile to top up Marlene's phone but to our complete lack of shock discovered that branch couldn't do it (not big enough, didnt have the right equipment, or just staffed by imbeciles, who knows?) so we'd have to go to another location (argh, China, in the words of a drill sergeant I once knew, "SORT YOUR SHAGGING LIFE OUT!").

We finally found the other store and then it was no problem to top up her phone; our next stop was a large shopping centre, but today's exhibition of stalls were mainly food based. Word to the wise, Chinese sausages come in all manner of shapes and sizes, most of which are unappealing and the smell of which will most likely make your gag reflex work overtime. Also, salespeople are doubly (if not triply) annoying when they wear a microphone and speak into a loudspeaker despite their stall being tiny and everyone else doing the same thing; we got out of there pretty quickly! The next stop was a large market (Xiao Shou Men, or however it is) to hunt down some thermal leggings and see if we could get Marlene some boots. We succeeded in finding leggings, gloves (Marlene now sports some pretty ladybird mittens), sampling some fried food (friend apple waffle turned out to be alright!) and trawling stalls for a good hour or so in the hope of finding cheap corduroy trousers (we didn't). Aside, Chinese people think "hello, hello" means "come here and look at my stall", which is annoying - best policy, just ignore them.

We stopped off at the same restaurant as before for a lag maan dinner (Marlene's first), and then home for hot chocolates, watching a film (to anyone reading, see Wall-E, it's good!) and bed before 0400. A good first day for Marlene!