We dumped our backpack at the People's Park and when we sit down on the bench, we saw many tents for 2 or 3 people there. In Japan some homeless people live in their tents at the park but these tents were there keeping each distance and noone seemed in the tents, so for me it was very strange. When we were eating fruits and cheking the guidebook, elder woman walking around there was talking me something while pointing the tents. When we saw a few of couples were enter and get out from the tents, we roughly solved the mystery. These tents looked like for dating couples making love. The elder woman looked like a these caretaker. Hmm... In China you can make money everything.
The public toilets in the park had no doors, which I had ever heard before. It was first time for me but luckily noone were there so I went to the toilet normally. I felt the Silk Road of inner China more.

It was early in the evening and we weren't that hungry, but we thought that we should grab something to eat before catching the bus, so we had decided to look for a restaurant. Psymeg had been eating oily Chinese food, which he had seldom ate in New Zealand and Japan, for a month, so wanted to eat light Japanese food or pizza or pasta, which he was used to having, so we tried to find a Japanese or Western restaurant. However not only is the centre of Urumqi spread out but also there is little infomation in our Japanese guidebook.

While wandering around, we saw a couple of laowai老外 talking at the foot of a building. When we smiled at them and they smiled back at us, so we talked them. One of them was Canadian, studying Uyghur in Urumqi, and the other one seemed to be their Uyghur friend. But he looked a bit like he was a hippy so at first I thought he was also Westerner. They gave us some good tips about restaurants in Urumqi, like how you can eat curry and rice at one Japanese restaurant and that there is a Pakistani restaurant which sometimes has vegetarian meals etc. We decided to go to the closest Japanese restaurant that they suggested. (By the way, last January we met them again at the Fubar, which is a legendary hangout for foreigners living in Urumqi, which was really cool).

We arrived at the Japanese restaurant which looked just like Japanese restaurants in Europe or other western countries. The restaurant is next to a Brazilian restaurant. Refering to my Chinese phrasebook and the menu, we ordered some sushi and vegetarian tempura as well as my favourite Japanese plum liqueur. Of cource the price was really expensive compared with your average bog-standard Chinese restaurant, but we had no idea when we would be able to eat Japanese food again, so we didn't worry about the price and just enjoyed the food. In the restaurant they were showing a video of the Japanese New Years Red and White music show so while listening to cheesy J-pop, I drank Japanese liqueur on the Silk Road. It was a really strange combination.

Time for our depature was drawing close so we hurried to the supermarket, where we had heard that once we can purchase cheese (because in Korla you can only find Chinese sliced cheese and cream cheese), and after buying some expensive New Zealand cheese from Hong Kong, we hailed a taxi to take us to the bus terminal.

At the bus terminal several guys who looked like they possibly were conductors asked us to show them our tickets, and when we showed them, one of them guided us to our Korla bound bus. It was first time for me to take a sleeping bus, but I am small so it was not so uncomfortable, but for psymeg it was small.

When all the passangers had boarded the bus, the bus pulled out at 9 o'clock right on schedule. Three hours later, the bus stopped for a welcome supper break. The toilet was the backyard of the restaurant. Both the female and male looked for a good place and releived themselves. After that the bus arrived in Korla before sunrise at 4am. We had arrived at our place on the Silk Road, the first time for me, and we soon went to sleep. The sun would rise and our life in the Silk Road would start.

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*Japanese restaurant we went to:
江戸之櫻 JiangHuZhiYing (Edo no Sakura in Japanese)
The restaurant's website (in Japanese and Chinese)
*Japanese restaurant with Japanese style curry and rice:
平政 PingZheng (Hiramasa in Japanese), 3rd floor of the City Hotel at Hongqi St.
The restaurant's website (in Japanese)(in Chinese)
Both restaurants seem to be managed by the same company.

*Westeners hangout in Urumqi: fubar
5 minutes walk from the northern gate of the People's Park (departure point of the one-day tours) on Northern People's Park St. Owned by a Kiwi, Irish, Japanese and Chinese.
The only place we have found where one can eat non-Chinese style pizza (including such treats as melted rich cheese and black olives) in Xinjiang. Also good fish'n'chips. Basically it is a bar so not so much in the way of food, things are a little pricey, but considering the atmosphere and all it is well worth it.
The staff and the regulars know a lot about Xinjiang, and travel in this province and they are really helpful.