Heavenly Lake take two

Mikkel got up and walked around Urumqui with David and Malene walked around with Lotti and David. On Malenes walk she went to a park area with a small lake and open squares where a lot of Chinese people where doing their morning exercise - everything from dancing to Tai Chi and other Chinese ways of exercising. Different groups did different things. It seemed liked you just put your music on and did your exercise where ever there was room. It was quite fascinating to watch and it could have been fun to join.

We made a group decision on not going to the museum which we missed yesterday. It would have been too much to cram into a day with the museum, second attempt for Heavenly Lake for a walk for  a coupple hours (without a yurt camp) and then drive to Turpan.

Heavenly lake was maybe not heavenly but it was still nice and we had a good walk. We also entered "Chinese tourist land". Everything was very controlled and organised. We left our truck at the parking lot and then we had to take a shuttle bus to the lake. There was music at the lake and you could go for a boatride. Some people from our group found it very touristed which it was compared to most of the places we have visited the last two months, but it wasn't much different from what you experience in Europe, Australia, US etc. We have just been spoiled with less developed tourist countries.

After a couple of hours of walking we drove for a few hours and arrived in Turpan - one of the hottest places on earth. It wasn't hot hot when we arrived just pleasently warm.

We went out for dinner with David and Cameron and found a nice place with several outdoor restaurants. Once again we enjoyed a fantastic meal...though one of the dishes turned out to be peanuts instead of beans...Malene had seen the dish at another table and thought it was beans....Instead of enjoying beans we trained our chopstick skills. We managed to eat all the peanuts with chopsticks! 

David getting a coffee in the morning with Mikkel 

Tired waiter early in the morning

Nico and Mikkel with a random Chinese guide

Trying a hat

Enjoying an icecream

Kong fu fighting - almost possible to see the pagoda in the background

One of many great signs here

So many Chinese people to have your photo taken with

Popular spot to take wedding pictures. Maybe not so special with 10 other couples

More kong fu fighting

Hey we found the little Chinese mermaid

Lots of shuttle busses ready to drive 

Yes, they are only talking about the urinal below 

Many windmills along the road

Saying hello to a tiny kitty in one off the gas stations