A few weeks ago we went to the mountains and found an incredible frozen waterfall. Here are a few pictures of what we were blessed to see.

A Trip to Kumul (Hami)

In January we went to Kumul (Hami in Chinese pronunciation) for a short vacation. We had a great time in this city in Eastern Xinjiang. Below are a few pictures from our trip:















A Kumul hand embroidered traditional hat.















The sun sets over the snow-covered Gbbi Dessert.















These cute girls helped us tour some of the famouse sites. It was so cute when they posed for this photo, each choosing an outfit that fits their unique personalities.















We went to Ghost City, a series of hills with strange rock formations in the Gobi Dessert. There were also some ancient cliff dwellings that give signs that this desert must have been fertile at one time.

Above is a glorious sunny winter day in Urumqi! These are very rare, but can occur once every two weeks or so if the wind is blowing the smoke out of the city to the north. The depressing picture below it is, unfortunately, a normal afternoon in January. This picture was taken on a cloudless, "sunny" day, at the same time and location as the one above it. But those beautiful mountains and most of the buildings have disappeared! Then there are days when it starts out nice like the first picture, then suddenly the wind shifts and within 10 minutes the smoke has enveloped the city and it looks like the picture on the bottom. Indeed, Urumqi would be a beautiful winter city if it weren't for the coal smoke!

Happy New Year

For the Korban Festival, we visited our friend who lives near Turpan. There they have raised plaftforms where they sit, eat, and sleep. The platform is nice and warm because it is heated by the smoke from the stove in the room.


This is the traditional Uyghur holiday treat called Sangza. It is made from dough by hand. The one on top is called "Leaf Sangza" because it is flat.


A new year is here. We got to see a firework show in Pichan (Shan-Shan), a town near Turpan, about four hours from our home in Urumqi. We got some good pictures. Here is the best one (notice the moon in the background).

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving and when we went to the zoo.

New washing machine

After a year of washing clothes in our bathtub we have finally entered the modern world and purchased a washing machine! After three days of deliberation we finally settled on a middle of the line top loading machine. Here is a picture of our new time saver.

First Snow!

The day before Thanksgiving it snowed for the first time this year. This is the latest it has snowed here in 22 years. Though we didn't mind the cold weather being late this year, we do enjoy the pretty white blanket of snow now covering our city. Here are some pictures of our snowman we made in our courtyard.

Historic Places in Southern Xinjiang

For China's national day holiday we took a trip to Southern Xinjiang to visit some of the famous places there.

We bought tickets for hard seats on the slow train! It was the only thing available because of the holiday. We were blessed to be able to upgrade to a sleeper car where we relaxed and slept for the remainder of the 32 hour train ride to Kashgar.

The view from the train was great as we went through the mountains...

...down into the desert.

In Kashgar we walked through the brick walkways of the old town...

...and got to look at some of the traditional architecture inside the homes.

Then we visited some Mausoleums of famous scholars. This one is Yusuf Hass Hajib's. He lived about 1000 years ago and contributed a lot to the education of the area during his time. He even wrote a poem that has 13,290 lines! (click here for more)

Next we went to Machmud Kashgari's tomb. He also lived about 1000 years ago and is famous for compiling a dictionary and contributed to the education of his time.

Next we went to Atush where there is a tomb of the first man in this area to become a Muslim. It was very impressive.

After several days in Kashgar we traveled on to Yarkant to see the tomb of Amannisahan. She compiled the famous 12 Mukham ( For more see the United Nations Cultural Preservation Website, or watch a movie about her).

This is a statue of her playing the satar.

Near the statue were some sheep boiled sheep heads for sale. We decided we weren't hungry for sheep brain that day!

As we walked through the streets of Yarkant, some children noticed that we had a camera. They followed us for several hundred yards, growing in number as they went, until we finally gave in and took their picture.

From Yarkant we took a bus to Aksu where we were amazed at the hotel. It had a tropical garden in an indoor courtyard with birds singing! It was a great place to rest before returning to Urumqi by an overnight sleeper bus. Look how big the banana tree leafs were!

For more information about Xinjiang and its history, please click here.