On the third day I found myself at, again, the Grand Bazaar area and Er Dao Jiao. This time the organisers had arranged a group outing for dinner and cultural performance. The food was bad, think pig swill.
There was a traffic jam at the lifts because of this guard standing at attention outside the jewelry shop. He could not quite carry off the statue effect because his eyes were popping out in a crazy fashion.
But the cultural performance made up for the bad food. They do try to romanticize the minority tribes, you know, the gallant horsemen, the beautiful maidens, there was even a Cinderella item where Cinderella is a man! But I didn't cringe at the performances, it was less getai, more "chorus line" and the dancers, male and female, mostly very beautiful.
The mosque is lit spectacularly at night. Every person with camera was trying to capture a good shot.