Urumqi China Nightlife | Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar Tour 2026

What's going on everybody? This is IslandHopperTV coming to you from the International Grand Bazaar here in Urumqi. So I've got to do something to pay for a entrance fee, I guess, before we can kick this thing off. Oh, I've got to go through security. Okay, cool. All right. Oh, I thought that was a doll. That little kid looks like a doll. All right. So we're definitely here in Urumqi. It's about 11 p.m. It gets dark here around like 9 30 10. So I had to wait for it to get dark before I could even come out. Look at that. Oh my goodness. Wow. All right. So as you guys know, I've been going all across Central Asia and I'm basically kind of following the Silk Road. I didn't go to Kashgar. I guess Kashgar is where it is. I went to Khorgos, but that's not Silk Road. And then, you know, now I'm in Urumqi. Last time I was in China, I went to Xi'an. See what's going on here. It's a beautiful evening here in the summer. It's early August. Oh, wow. Look at this place, man. Cool vibes. They've got like Arabic here. Chinese and Arabic. Turkic. As you know, this area of Xinjiang is where the Uyghurs are located. So you have a Uyghur population, which is like nomadic tribes, Turkic nomadic tribes, kind of like Kazakh and such. I rode the train in today coming in from Yining, which is nearby Khorgos. It was a six hour semi high speed train. It went about 150 kilometers per hour. This is like 100 miles an hour at top speed. Crossing through a lot of mountains, actually. But we're still quite far away from most of the main areas of China, which would basically be like, you know, kind of starts, I guess, at Xi'an. Chengdu, Xi'an. And in order to get there, it's a high speed train that takes about 12 hours. So even by high speed train. So I'm in no hurry to try and get there. I'm gonna kind of city hop my way over there. Enjoy this Silk Road area here, because this is part of the Silk Road, this Yerumchi. From here, they would have went south. And the reason I think they went south, south of those mountains near Almaty, but also it was kind of like a way to get south of Caspian Sea. That was like the big thing that I saw on the map was the Caspian Sea. How to get around that back in the old days. Oh my goodness, it gets even more wild over here. What is going on over here? What a place though. International Grand Bazaar. So much energy. This is a Tuesday night, by the way. No, Monday night. Monday night at 11pm. Is it like this every night? I would imagine. Got some pomegranates right here. Yerumchi has got a lot of high rises. The city itself has about 5 million people. 4 or 5 billion people, somewhere around there. What's this? Oh my gosh, what is that? What is that? Look at this. I just want to show you. It looks cooler from the outside looking in. Out on the road. I gotta follow this down. Actually, it is kind of a cool little bazaar indoor place. But I walked through here. Got lots of restaurants and like, it's air conditioning. It's hot out here in the desert because basically we're in the Koby Desert, guys. Alright, back out on the road again. Out on the Silk Road. Or just the International Bazaar. Good vibes around here. People always waving or saying hi if I say something. Sometimes I'll even walk by and someone will say hello. So, friendly people all around. Chill vibes. I like it here. I haven't seen a single person who looks like me, so. Don't expect to see people that are like you here. That's cool though, right? Isn't that why we travel? And if you want to be around people who look like you, why travel? Stay in your own place. Wow, cool place though. Kind of reminds me of this place I went to in Xi'an, yeah? Everbright City. Oh wow, what is over here? It's like In-N-Out, bobbing and weaving. Go this way, could go that way. I'm going to go that way just to see what we got. I've been having lots of barbecue while we're here. This is the Uyghur Medicine Experience Center. Okay, that's good. Uyghur's got a different spelling than what you would see on TV here. They spell it U-I-H-E-G-H-U-R. On the internet, they spell it U-Y-G-H-E-R. A little bit different spelling. What do we got here? Oh, this is beef butcher. Hello. It's dry beef. How much? Uh, $155. I want one. One? One, please. One. One order. $155. Okay. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Come on. How much? $65. $65? $165. Half. Half. I don't want all. No, cannot? No. Only $155? No. $155 only? It's spicy, not spicy. $155? $165. Come on. Yeah. All right, I got some beef jerky. I was trying to tell him, he thought I was trying to get him to charge less per whatever that 100, you know, 150 kg or whatever it is. I was trying to say, I only want to spend 100 yuan. So I got a big old bag of beef jerky here. It's going to last me, I don't know. Last time I got a big bag of beef jerky, I ate it all in one day. And I intended it to last me for all my travels because I didn't expect myself to just start chewing on it like an addict. Something about the beef was just so good. I think that was in Hangzhou. Or no, Suzhou. No, Hangzhou. Yeah, I got that beef jerky in Hangzhou. All the Chinese, they, when you come to Xinjiang, they always say, you want barbecue. Because the barbecue is very famous here. Very good barbecue. Actually, I was eating food in Kazakhstan and it's good. But what do they got going on over here? What's everyone tuning in to? Oh, the ice cream guy. Doing the ice cream thing. Get some ice cream. Oh my goodness, lamb wrapped in bread. Oh. Oh. Oh, that's good. Okay. Everyone is so friendly here. Oh my gosh. Look at this place, guys. It's amazing. All right. Across the street we go. It's actually past midnight now. Oh, security clearance. Oh, this is where they got most of the food, it looks like. Let's see what they got on some food over here. I'm like, shawarma? Chinese? Drink? Oh, yeah. Happy, happy. Oh, the barbecue skewers. Heck yeah. This is where I do my jam. Noodle? What is this? That's like intestine. Good food o'clock. There are more, more restaurants. Oh, we got an exit. The way out. All right, guys. Well, that was the Grand Bazaar here in Urumqi.