Karamay and me me me

(Disclaimer: the formatting on all of these Chinese posts is going to be messed up as hell for the entire duration of this trip, as I can only post them as “quotes” via my iphone and it’s really, really slow. I can’t preview the posts and therefore a lot of typos and bad grammer slips past me. Sorry. All will be corrected when I’m back in the land of the living)(or not, because I’m lazy).

This morning we all pulled on exciting jumpsuits and went to visit various oil plants and construction sites dotted around Karamay. Photos weren’t allowed onsite, so instead I bring you a dozen pictures of me, me, me, in my suit, and eventually hat, and occasionally with various colleagues. (I do have a couple of beautiful scenic posts lined up but I want to be able to preview them on a real screen before I publish them…)

You’re never fully dressed without a smile and a grand piano.

Me and my workmate

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a caged hedgehog and bunny rabbit, spotted being rushed across the hotel carpark. I have NO idea what-who-where-how-why but it reminded me of the hedgehogs we kept as pets when we were small.

And last but not least, my favourite, with the Chinese flag blowing perfectly in the background!

And whilst I’m unashamedly doing a blog post which is essentially pictures of me, much much later that day we were having dinner in the plushest restaurant of Urumqi and this guy turned up to prepare noodles in front of us.

It just so happens that I loooooooove these chunky noodles — “fat noodles”, as I call them. I first discovered them in Taiwan as there is a restaurant that does them in the Shida night market, and I have dragged every visitor to see them being made by slicing slivers of dough into boiling soup. And of course today was the day I got to do so myself, woohoo!

Discovering it’s not all that easy…

Damn noodles won’t come off the stick…

WILL… YOU… DROP… INTO … THE SOUP NOW PLEEEASSEE *banging against the pot*

Officially failing at making a noodle: