I have, not surprisingly considering the length of time since the last blog, a fair few things to talk about in this blog. The fact that i've left it so long means I will probably forget a few things...but that's entirely my fault. Where do I start?

I won't even attempt this post to be arranged chronologically, as with nearly 2 months since last time I wrote, I'm sure to get a few things mixed up. I may as well have everything mixed up!

One rather important thing is that I'm now on my own. You may remember that I said Marcus was having passport troubles that looked like they were about to get sorted out. Well, in the end the said problems did not get sorted out, and Marcus had to head home. He got back to the UK a few days ago now, but he was holed up in Beijing for a long long time. Naturally it wasn't a happy time having to say bye to my partner for the year, but i've been surviving. I must have been on my own for just under a month now.

Well, that would have been the case if I hadn't had so many visitors. The week after Marcus' departure I had a rather large number of fellow volunteers over here in Kuitun for the May holiday. May holiday is a national one similar to National day in October, but I can't remember what it actually celebrates. It really was great of everyone to come to Kuitun. All 6 of them could easily have chosen to go to a major town somewhere (some of the guys used the holiday to go to Chengdu for example) but instead they all came to visit a small provincial town in Xinjiang. I certainly wasn't complaining, considering I was just getting used to being on my own. Those few days of holiday basically consisted of catching up with everyone and just enjoying ourselves rather than doing much.

Again, I wasn't complaining, as I needed a good rest. Unlike the previous blog suggests, teaching once again got harder, to the point of it being just as bad as the 9th grader kids were just before spring festival. Good luck to whoever is next year's Kuitun middle school volunteer, the kids can be hard work...especially if you have an aversion to shouting as I do.

The next visitor came a few weeks later - last week as it happens. This visit was the first time that I had seen family for 9 months, as this time it was my dad who was visiting. The school gave me a few days off, and so we went on a mini eastern-xinjiang tour before coming back to Kuitun to teach on the thursday and friday.

After arriving in Urumqi, we met up with Alex and Stephen who were busy doing an English corner at a café in town. Naturally there were only uighurs and no Han at the club, and as a result the standard of spoken English was naturally far higher. It was actually really interesting talking to the guys who turned up, and one of the guys with excellent English told us some rather damning things about the Han treatment of them. But that's best not mentioned too much on here. The guy's claims didn't feel in any way sensationalist or blown out of proportion, but perhaps that was because he told us of some rather extreme discrimination, whilst still keeping his jolly smile on. I couldn't help but think how brave he was for keeping a positive outlook even after he seemed to have experienced more than his fair share of discrimination, even for the minority groups of Xinjiang.

Slightly less important, but good nonetheless, was that this coffee place gave you free refills of coffee! Always a good thing in a region that often has no good coffee.

I also discovered, much to the disagreement of previous blog posts by me, that I actually rather like Urumqi. It was admittedly a miserable place in winter when you didn't know the city, but in the summer it positively blooms. It's gone from being my least favourite city in China to climbing possibly into the top 5.The parks are lovely and it's a very clean city. The Uighur district is also not only an amazing place, but makes a nice break from all things Han. You won't find cheesy dance music blurting out of shops, or massively consumerist slogans painted across wall there. Instead there are the smells of the Uighur food markets, people wearing traditional and very colourful clothes, buildings with a distinctly central Asian feel, and despite the hustle and bustle of it all, it's actually quite peaceful there.

If you ignore the army and armoured vehicles everywhere. That reminds me of a rather important thing that I forgot to mention, but really really need to. I will get onto that in a second, but first about the military presence. Admittedly the whole of Urumqi has the army and police marching about it, but in the Uighur district they are everywhere, always armed and looking nasty. I will hold back a little here, but honestly, the army presence makes me very angry. There may be tensions in Xinjiang, but having military fortifications just to watch people is massively over the top. Over the course of the year I've tried to remain unbiased over the ethnic tensions in Xinjiang, but I'm increasingly getting angry at the Han's response towards it. Aggression is met with aggression suppression and discrimination. The Han line is that the police and military are there to protect. I honestly think now that they are there to spread fear.

Now for that thing that I needed to mention that I didn't. There was indeed a terrorist attack in Urumqi. It also happened a few hours after my friends passed through the train station (where it took place) to get to Kuitun. Luckily all the guys got through unscathed because of the couple of hours gap, but people were killed in the attack.

It's a shock when your friends nearly get caught in a terrorist attack, I tell you.

So you may think that the increase in 'security' is justified, but I feel the army is there to intimidate, not to protect.

Let's move onto something more cheerful.

My dad and I followed the guys over to Fukang and spent a few nights there. Other than it being nice for me to see Alex and Stephen, staying there gave a great opportunity to get up finally onto one of Xinjiang's natural gems, 天池, or heavenly lake. There were claims that it is ruined these days by too many tourists, but luckily we clearly got there just before the peak months. There were hardly any visitors and we had the place almost to ourselves (by Chinese standards). It's absolutely amazing in Xinjiang that all it takes sometimes to get from a near desert to lush green alpine mountains is 20 minutes on a bus. The Alpine Tianshan Mountains are only an hour south of Kuitun too, but that is an hour too far without public transport to get there.

Straight after the huge differences between Urumqi, Fukang and Tianchi my dad and I went to yet another place of extreme contrast - Turpan. This city is over 100 metres below sea level, which possibly contributes to it being both the hottest and one of the coldest places in China. Luckily when we were there, being spring, it was a mere 30+ degrees. It reaches nearly 50 sometimes in the summer. My guide book calls the basin in which Turpan is found the 'death valley' of China. It's a good description, to a point. When you drive down into the basin, and you do definitely notice going down into it, the desert turns ashen grey and as dry looking as dry can be. It looks like it should be the hottest place in China. But then, the grey stones turn into lush green, and you reach Turpan city. Due to large reserves of ground water, the area around Turpan city is some of the most fertile in China, despite being surrounded by so much bone-dry land. I can tell you, it's impressive driving from a terribly imposing desert into a lush oasis town.

Turpan is a mainly Uighur town and as such has a very different feel from the other cities I've visited in Xinjiang. Honestly, I appreciated the change. Again, I'll use what the guide book claimed - it says that Turpan is a wonderfully chilled out town. I say that perhaps it perhaps is 'chilled out' in terms of the annoying sides of 'loud' China such as the cheesy pop music being absent, but this city in many ways was much more alive than any other Xinjiang town. The markets were genuine, unlike the touristy bazaar in Urumqi, and so were bustling with life. What Turpan city is perhaps most famous for though are its grapes, which unfortunately won't be in season until I leave Xinjiang. I'm inexpressible sad about this fact, as Turpan grapes are the best. Luckily the grape vines that wrap their way throughout the whole city don't disappear for the less fruitful seasons and part of the city positively shine with lush green grape vines. It really is beautiful. Maybe one day I will be able to come back and go to the Turpan grape festival that happens in autumn.

After Turpan, it was time to head back to Kuitun. It's lucky that my dad doesn't wear out easily from travelling, because we had been to Fukang, Tianchi, Turpan and through Urumqi twice in only four days, and now we were jumping on a train back to my home. It also was going to remain busy, as although Wednesday was fairly lazy (just cycling around town and doing official stuff), Thursday had basically had a day before I even started work. Jasper invited us for a barbeque - In the desert, on a mountain known as 'Fire Mountain' (not to be mixed up with the fire mountain near Turpan) as it bubbles mud in certain places and is supposedly a volcano. School only begins in the afternoon on Thursdays for me luckily, but before work had even begun, we had gorged ourselves on a giant barbeque, explored a volcano, flown a professional kite on the said volcano and drunk a few beers. Drinking before lessons, call me irresponsible but teachers have been known to drink excessive amounts of Baijiu between lessons at lunch time banquets. Banquets are a special occasion, as was a barbeque on a mountain with my dad and Jasper. I feel that is justification.

It's also China. You can't escape drinking in China!

As for the lessons, we had a fair bit of fun. We shared the lessons as the students quite conveniently had a topic that related to dad's work. Although the kids probably didn't understand everything he was saying, the few kids that did actually pay attention appeared to enjoy it. I guess not many people's dads can show pictures of Lemurs sat on their shoulders and videos of jumping with the Masai and call it work. Not that I'm slightly jealous of his work or anything…

On Friday there was one last surprise - one that seemed almost impossible to me, but it happened. I introduced my dad to Jasper's uncle John, Kuitun's pastor. As my dad is from New Zealand and John spent a year in Christchurch, I thought they would enjoy meeting. After talking for a good while, they got onto the topic of Christchurch. They talked about the earthquake a few years ago and then the churches in town. This was when we found out something rather amazing. My dad and John shared a family from whom they had friends. The family who looked after John while he lived in New Zealand was the same family who now looks after my dad's mum.

So I have travelled to one of the most isolated spots in China, and even here I still find people who have some link to people I know. It's crazy.

And so the next day, Dad went home to the UK.

I know I've missed a few things - I always do, but I think this is a good spot to leave the blog for now. But before I finish, I feel I should add some news that just came through today. Yet another attack has happened in Urumqi, much worse than the train station attack. I don't know the details as the BBC article has been blocked, but it seems the attacks are getting more numerous and more dangerous. It's really sad to see, but at least Kuitun is safe… I think it's important to say to any Xinjiang volunteers coming this year, it is generally safe here - it's just Urumqi that you need to be careful about.

As for the volunteers going to Urumqi, as I believe PT has set up a project there this year, Urumqi is also usually safe. But be careful - it seems to be getting worse, and to those lovely PT moderators who read all the blogs, think serious about whether the Urumqi project is a good idea. I think it would be an awesome project, but it might not be safe anymore.

Until next time, thanks for reading!