Friday June 12, 2009 - Lanzhou

Friday June 12 - Lanzhou We had most of the day free in Lanzhou. Ray and I got up late - 9 am and hunted for something for breakfast other than rice, noodles, etc. Mmm, difficult. We ended up in KFC eating mini chicken burgers and tea and coffee. It was excellent!! Another couple from the Truck wandered in too!! You can't believe how popular KFC seems to be here. We saw so many outlets!! Lanzjou is fairly big, 2,800,000 people. In the 1990s it was considered the world's most polluted city. Its built in the valley floor surrounded by mountains. What we saw was fairly modern and typically Chinese. Tons and tons of residential high rises. The downtown was fun. Chinese people love to eat out. We went to the HezhengLu night market, a collection of food stalls on either side of the street all making up fresh dishes of goats head soup, steamed snails, mutton pitas, stir fry, etc. Ian had goat's artery kebabs. Each stall had its own table around which all the stall patrons sat. It was an exciting place. Other than that - not much was unique. After breakfast Ray had some passport photos taken. He waited patiently while the girl went out on her bicycle to get the prints. I went to the Internet - it was a huge room tucked away on the 2nd floor above the shops and must have held about 50 - 100 computers set up classroom style. Still can't access my blog though!! After that we went into one of the restaurants and picked a dish by pointing to the picture. It was delicious!! What I thought was green and red pepper turned out to be chilli peppers, so poor Ray had quite a time with the hotness. But it was really good. Then it was back to the hotel and on to the Truck and off on our way. We didn't drive far (about 2 1/2 hrs) and made a rough camp on the ridge of a hill looking down over all the terraces. It was a spectacular view, and very unique.