Meeting our guests off the train didn’t quite go according to plan. They somehow managed to miss their train and eventually rolled in at 3am, when I was still apparently expected to meet them. Cue 4am fried rice – luckily my next day’s classes started after midday. Lunch was Pollo, at which point Tom removed his hat in front of the others for the first time, revealing his recently-shaved hair (Ben’s face; priceless). My last lessons of the semester took place the next day, followed by 大盘鸡 (dàpánjī – ‘big plate chicken’), which is a Xinjiang specialty: essentially an entire chicken hacked into chunks, served with potato and belt noodles in a spicy sauce. Great fun when you realise you’ve just burst the chicken’s eyeball into your mouth.

First thing Saturday morning we were off to see Star Wars in Ürümqi. We stayed the night with some re-returned volunteers who seemed surprised to see us (great planning right there). The evening started with fried dumplings and ended at 3am in a bar with Ben and Tom, amusing ourselves with the increasingly drunken groups around us. The next day we visited a Buddhist temple in North Ürümqi (very cold) then met Calum at his apartment, armed with a lot of Falaishi’s whole-braised chicken.

On Monday morning we tried to go skiing, but failed due to some Winter Games. What concerned me most was the fact that, without trying to break in, we managed to get past no fewer than two police checkpoints and even made it up to the front desk to ask for day entry before we were challenged and sent back (“Why are you here? You aren’t athletes.”). Good job.

We relaxed in Fukang over the next few days. Calum and I went to queue up for free Winter Games tickets but gave up upon seeing the ‘queue’ (a fully-qualified crush replete with children being lifted out for their own safety). Meeting up with some other resident foreigners we played Mafia (similar to Werewolf, if that helps) and KTV through the night (a must-do). Tom’s Birthday was celebrated with a banquet and cake. Having spent the last two days on the (heated) floor, the (now fermenting) fruits tasted of baijiu and insides turned out to be red bean paste (just no). The cake’s courier (Marina) fell over so many times on the icy roads to the restaurant, it was barely recognisable anyway.

We left with frantic checks and a fridge-cleaning (bleach, bleach, bleach) and visited Sharon and Stephen’s for their ‘Ultimate Fattening Pudding’ (as good as it sounds) followed by yet another excellent curry. Tom had Happy Birthday sung in several languages. Once in Ürümqi, en route to the station, our groups split: Calum and I on the BRT and Ben, Tom, Marina and Courtney on the buses, racing to the station. We got there first despite walking from the last stop, but our train was quickly delayed by thirty minutes… then ‘indefinitely’. Erm.

The other group also faced delays on their Lanzhou train but got to board after a few hours. I took the opportunity of Tom being penned in by people and chairs in the queue to ‘Last-Hit’ him; ‘Last-Hit’ is a game where you try to be the last person to hit the other (a bit like tag), which we’ve been playing since New Year’s. Happy Birthday Tom! Our Xi’an-bound train remained indefinitely delayed until a prediction of 4am which was pushed back half-hourly until seven thirty, after nearly ten hours on the waiting room floor. I was so glad we had sleeper tickets, because the journey itself was thirty-two hours.

—TJC

Featured image: Celebrating Tom’s 19th. LTR: me, Oksana, Marina, Calum, Sharon, Oksana, Linda, Ben, Tom, Courtney, and Charnau.