The next day we put on a short performance for the people at the guesthouse. We had a great time with the owner and her family, eating and talking the night before and they had requested that we play some for the owner's sister's birthday. We gladly did so, after a nice breakfast and then hopped on a train to Bukhara. It was still not too late once we got to Bukhara, so we found a place to stay in a simple, but beautiful old home owned by an old man named Mubinjan. We met some of the other guests and it turned out they were cooking Pilov together that night with Mubinjan. They were all travellers from different countries as well. We were graciously invited. We had limited time there so we wanted to quickly head out to see the city, but decided that we would look for some good dessert to bring back.Omar and I left our things there and head out, walking through beautiful restored Zikr khanas, mosques, tombs, caravansaras etc, but all had been transformed into giftshops. So while the original purpose of these sites had been lost, they did manage to keep the high caliber of workmanship and crafts alive through these shops. There were beautiful handicrafts, pottery, puppets, paintings, calligraphy, woodwork etc. It was all really amazing and of a very high quality. These may have been souvenir shops, but the crafts they sold were not junk like I had seen in some places. It was actually a lot of fun to look at all the beautiful work that people had on display. Besides that, we were walking through all kinds of beautiful architecture. Most of the sites in Bukhara were closer together and very near where we were staying, so we managed to see a good majority of it before making a last ditch effort to find some dessert to take back, having failed to find any traditional sweets. We walked around looking for halwa or baklava for quite a while, following all kinds of directions until we were led to a home where we met a family who were really excited to have us read the script written on a tape of a famous Afghan musician, which we did. They offered to make us halwa the next day, but there was nothing today, so instead their son showed us the way to a general store where we could buy chocolate cake.There, Omar and I bought a tray of assorted chocolate cake slices and walked back to the guest house. Everyone else had eaten and was sitting around enjoying some conversation by the time we returned. We presented the cake, and it was put to one side as they made room for a spread of food for us. The pilov was delicious. Lamb, rice, carrots, cooked to where each morsel of rice was rich with flavor. There were backpackers from France, Russia, Italy etc all sitting around a table talking and laughing and enjoying the very charismatic Mubinjan's stories as translated by Sergei, who was from Russia. Mubinjan did not speak English, but he knew a handful of words and used so much expression, body language and sounds to tell stories that captivated us all. There was a real sense that the coming together of this group of people was a special and sweet occasion. This was not a man out to make as much money as possible. He enjoyed being around giving people and enjoyed giving to all of us as well. Our experiences at other hostels or guest houses varied. There were places we made friends and places we did not, but none was like this where the owner and all the guests sat together in such warmth. I felt like we were really a part of something rare and special even for that place and it seemed everyone else did too.We talked and laughed late into the night, before everyone turned in.