Near the end of the highspeed rail line on the westernmost side of Xinjiang, I found the last stop on my trip at the city of Urumqi, which China argues is the geographic center of all of Asia. Apon arrival I noticed that the tonal complexities of mandarin have eroded here, allowing me to relax my tongue while speaking with the locals. This is most likely due to the fact that this is a multi-language city, there is a 3.5 million population of Uyghur minorities here who speek the Turkic language of the same name.
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| On the Uyghur side of town |
One of my first hunts here was Leaf Brewery, which was rumored to exist on a rarely updated local expat community website. After wandering around and asking some locals if they recognized the address, I got a basic indication of the area it might be. I located the place on the side of a torn up, under construction road next to what looked like a strip club. Inside I found a large and loud local hangout with Canadian flags on the wall, a giant food menu and 5 beers on tap. All the beers were actually pretty good, the only downside was that there is no sampler, and on this night I could not convince them to let me test the beers, so by the time I managed to get through each beer I was completely tanked. The menu here is more on the Chinese side but loaded with such a variety that you will be able to find something to sober you up once you get as drunk as I was. I settled for a bowl of crayfish!
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| Outside Leaf Beer |
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