[mappress]

Xining is the capital of Qinghai province. The city has a population of around 1 million and has a sea level above 2000 meters. The city has a good mix of Han, Zhang (Tibetan) and Hui.

Xining is spreaded out from east to west just south of the yellow river. Took bus 9 to the provincial museum.

Inside the museum

A Tibetan exhibit section

The museum is quite new just like the one in LanZhou, just a little smaller. Both museums are free. At first I was impressed by the infrastructures in China but even now museums are well constructed. It seems like these two provincial governments have a lot of funds to spend. China has a huge reserves so the country is able to direct its surplus to construct not only hard assets such as roads and buildings but even soft assets with cultural and historical values.

Just 35 years ago, the country was embroiled in cultural revolution where museums and cultural relics were destroyed but looks like now things are changing for the better, or that is what it seems on the surface.

Xining GuangChang

Wushu Practice

Yummy duck neck (5 Yuan). It’s very spicy.

Activities on the frozen river.

A Chinese family. Because of one child policy, the whole family is able to fit in one cart.

RenMin GuangChang

Noise pollution monitor

Tibetan (Zhang Zu) family. I heard that around 20% of the population in Xining are Tibetans.

Went to a QingZhen restaurant. QingZhen restaurants are usually opened by Hui (Chinese Muslims) and they don’t allow outside food such as meat to the restaurant.
Mushroom noodle (6 Yuan)

Mountains behind the train station

Mosque

Xining is quite a diverse city. Tibetans monks and Hui Chinese (Muslims Chinese) walking on the street.

Performance across the train station

Got on the 7.24pm overnight K916 train (120 Yuan~USD$18) to YinChuan.
Inside the train station

Ate LanZhou la mian (5 Yuan) at MaZhiLu restaurant. The restaurant is well known and is considered as one of the best La Mian place in LanZhou.

Waiting for LaMian

Went to the train station and bought the 5.44pm train ticket (33 Yuan~USD$5, around 200km)to LanZhou.

Went to ICBC bank and tried to open a Chinese bank account. Banks and cell phone providers in China are fragmented. Withrawing and saving money in the same banks in a different province will get hit by a surcharge. For ICBC bank it’s a 1% surcharge for saving and withrawing with a maximum fee of 100 Yuan.

Using cell phone in a different town/city will get hit by roaming charges and every city has their own cell phone plans.

Bank of China has a better fee structures but they don’t have as many branches as ICBC.

Took bus 58 to the provincial museum at the west part of the city. There was a long line because of holiday and I really like the museum.

This sign mentioned that people who don’t dress nicely and people who are stupid or has brain damaged are not allowed to enter the museum.

an very old dumplings

This exhibit is about how life is formed in the beginning. It’s all about evolution because communism and religion don’t go together.

Dinosaur exhibits

Goods transported from China to the west through the silk road

Goods transported from the west to China through the silk road

Galloping horse

People!!!

Took the 5.25 express train from Lanzhou to Xining

Got to Xining train station at around 8pm.

Bought another train ticket for my next destination tomorrow to YinChuan (7pm, 120 Yuan~USD$17, upper sleeping berth)

After visiting around 7 hotels and ZhaoDaiShuo, finally stayed a hotel across the train station (80 Yuan~USD$12). Many ZhaoDaiShuo were like those in Lanzhou where they don’t accept foreigners.