My Trip to Aksu

A few weeks ago me and Slav had to go with Ma Ming into Aksu to get our residency permits. There is a bus between Alaer and Aksu, but since this was official school business Ma Ming got the school car and driver to take us. There's only really on road from Aksu to Alaer so we were constantly passing slow trucks and farm equipment. There were a few really small towns along the way that were set up at crossroads. Ma Ming also brought a girl who I thought was his girlfriend, since they had only been going out for a month or so, but it turns out she was actually his fiancée. That's how things work in China you find someone acceptable and you don't waste any time.

She also works for the school in another department. She's not a teacher but I'm not sure exactly what she does. In Aksu we got a quick lunch at a beef noodle restaurant before going to the various police stations to get the permits. Mostly that just involved Ma Ming talking to people while me and Slav sat around. In one stations we noticed Ma Ming's picture was on the wall. I joked that he was on the most wanted list but he said it was just because he worked in the foreign affairs department. He was even nice enough to take a picture with his picture. I should have realized it from the maps but I was surprised to see that Aksu is close enough to the giant mountains that ring the Tarim Basin to see the actual mountains, which gave a nice look to the town.

After we got our permits, annoyingly they don't cover our whole stay so we have to do this again some time late next semester, we went shopping for a new cell phone for Ma Ming's fiancée. The cell phone store was actually about 30 little kiosks all selling different cell phones. I have no idea how any of these place make money with so much competition. She looked at a bunch of cell phones but didn't see one she liked so we went to another store with another 30 kiosks. There was even one place that sold, what I think were real, iphones.

Finally, after what felt like forever she picked one she liked. We went to look for some English language moves but the selection was terrible and the price the guy was asking was laughable so neither Slav nor I bought any. For some reason after this Ma Ming insisted on eating another meal, despite the fact no one was hungry. Actually my stomach wasn't feeling well, a constant issue in China, so I didn't eat much. We looked in a big supermarket for butter but couldn't find any. So that was our trip to Aksu, it took all day and we didn't manage to do much.