Arriving in Urumqi was probably the most surreal moment of my life. Exhausted from the journey- mainly thanks to the unpleasant customs officials and the invasive nature of a search and our surly cabin mates, we were disheartened by how bewildering the station was. The sheer mass of people congregating outside made it overwhelming and confusing. We were the only true westerners on the train. Naturally people stared openly at us struggling through the crowd with our heavy backpacks but there seemed to be a lot of curiosity as to why exactly we were there.
All of the signage was bilingual, insofar as it was either in mandarin or in arabic script, neither of which either of us were wholly familiar with. This made directing ourselves to the ticket office, taxi rank and hotel a small scale mission. Urumqi boasts a rich culture made up of 43 separate peoples. This fact alone is evident by walking around, you certainly feel you're not in the far east. Especially with the heavy emphasis on arabic flavours and sights- like the stalls selling dried fruit and nuts or the shish kebabs (shashlik) turning on coals.
Once we'd sorted our tickets to Shanghai (by figuring out how Shanghai is written in chinese characters we were able to deduce which of the mile long 20 strong queues to wait in) and found our hotel, we were ready to be fed and watered. We spotted a restaurant near the hotel which looked clean and friendly.
After establishing that we were to get grass carp, sweet potato and cabbage, we drank our beer, cheered by the thought of a hot meal. All we knew of Chinese food and table manners was the basic chopstick wielding technique and to put elbows on the table.
A hot pot arrived and was placed between us on a stove to keep it bubbling. This pot was divided into two, much like a yin yang sign. One side had death-chili oil bubbling away and the left had a broth complete with vegetables. Keen to eat and to show off our chopstick ability, we spooned broth into our bowls.
The waitress was immediately at our side, perplexed and unhappy about something she embarrassedly shook her head and stopped our hand. These are the rules we since learnt after dinner:
- The pot in front of you is for cooking food. Do not spoon out broth or boiling oil into a bowl to eat.
- You will be served a whole fish. The eye is the delicacy, eat it with relish. Feel free to not eat bones, although where to leave them is a mystery.
- Beer is drunk from glass glasses by locals, you will be given paper kiddie cups as standard.
- Don't be surprised if the table next to you appears excessively rowdy by smashing glasses against the wall, windows, floors etc.. do like everyone else and act as if nothing happened.
- Put salt in your tea not sugar.
- Put yoghurt in your tea, not milk.
- Eat everything served at the temperature of magma.
- Don't attempt to mix your wasabi-type paste into soy sauce yourself, the waitress likes to do it.
- Eating 3kg of food in one sitting is standard, no one raised an eyebrow to us having a whole carp each and what amounted to a small field's worth of veg.
- Tea is sipped at all times
- Tissues, napkins etc.. will NOT be available (this goes for toilets too- although there's mysterious bins filled with used paper) bring your own. The hot, wet towel is for after.
- Women aren't offered beer, thats the way the noodle rolls.
Other than that, you should get through a meal unscathed...... Our feast came to about 120 yuan.. or £8.
All the waitresses here are pretty interactive thankfully, so all faux pas are monitored and damage control is undertaken swiftly. Although it is a little embarrassing to have someone shadowing your chopstick ability with an eagle eye!
