May 27, lunch stop at Nalati

Driving along the highway and endless of beautiful landscapes, plenty of pictures taken, our appetite is well built. Neo is a great guy and a great guide, he planed the trip knowing exactly what we like and take care our meals masterfully. Masterfully means delicious, not necessary expensive.
Not just that we are hungary, so is our Land Cruiser, time to stop for gas before the official lunch break.
While waiting for the diesel filled, I grabbed the little Canon G10 (not as compact as my Sigma DP-1, but still considered small for every other cameras I use), and took a few picture for a house right next to the gas station. G10 is a powerful compact camera, I am very tempted to comment that if I were allow only a camera for a quick short trip, I would almost without hesitate to recommend a Canon G10. Its low ISO pictures is great (and I mean GREAT), keep the lens wide open if possible, if it is too bright for even the lowest ISO setting, and you need shutter speed you need, use the built-in ND filter to help. This small camera just produce excellent image for what it is. Above ISO 400, nothing special, but still useful when you really need it. Doing it right, it gives the image size, texture, overall quality like a true camera, easily rival the lower end DSLR. Sorry, I am also a DSLR user, but don't look down those tiny compact DC, they often surprise me.
We stopped by a local restaurant, and to eat like local is the best advise I will give, as I learned from experience. While waiting for the food, I took the Canon G10, and take a few shots in the restaurant, the lovely Uyghur waitress and the back kitchen, some short video clip. With our appetite well built, each of us order double portion of the now-our-favorite Xinjiang noodle 拌面, even my wife took as much as everybody else, a true testimony for the great food. During our luch break, Huang Zheng continue to update us the world commodity news, keeping us in the reality that fun is a matter, reality another. World economic continue to develop for better and sometimes for worse, positive for someone negative for others. And he delivered good news! Invested much into gold, Hunag Zheng announce he has made good gain on his investment, and award Neo a Canon 5D2, and we are all happy for Neo. My wife, however, is the only one in our group, perhpas in that partiuclar day in this little yet beautiful town in Xinjiang, know little of what we have in conversation, but when we congratulate Neo for his coming new camera, she felt the cheer, and also happy for him.
The G10 kitchen shot.Time to move on! Our ultimate goal today is to kilo zero, and overcome our worry, and move on to Bayanbulak. Good lunch did little to increase our luck, yet somehow we have more confidence.