Inner Mongolia

I had considered going to a city like Qingdao or Chengdu over break but opted to accompany my roommate and three other friends to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.


The really friendly workers at our hostel helped us plan and even accompanied us to our two activities in Inner Mongolia: the grasslands and the desert. I knew it was going to be cold in Hohhot, but I had no idea that it would be as freezing as it was. I'm pretty sure it was the coldest I've ever been. I had bought long underwear back in Beijing, and was wearing four or five jackets, two pairs of gloves and three pairs of socks and it was still freezing.

There was nothing man-made on this land other than our host family's tiny house. We walked around for a bit and saw wild horses (my friend said that the horses weren't actually wild... but I prefer to think that they are.) We were going to go horse-riding later that day, but we had to wait until the next morning. Not having much else to do, we stayed in the house and played a Mongolian game similar to jacks that involved tossing and picking up small sheep bones. For dinner we had Mongolian pie (similar to empanadas), sheep liver and intestines, and an array of vegetables. I tasted one tiny piece of liver to say I had tried it, but I filled myself on rice and veggies and had a PB&J later. That night we slept covered in a thousand blankets inside of a yurt (we were offered a heated room in the house but decided the yurt was a more worthwhile experience.) Horse-riding was so much fun, and it was made even better by the beautiful surroundings. It's something that I'll never forget.

I'm actually not sure which I enjoyed more, horse-back riding in the bleak tundra or camel riding the next day in the Gobi Desert. Thankfully the weather was much nicer in the desert - it was actually kind of hot. After riding around on my camel, which I named Jay-Z, for a couple of hours, we went sliding down sand dunes. I didn't even feel like in China. Even though we were only an hour-and-a-half plane ride away from Beijing, I felt like I was in a totally different world. Like this blog post, the trip to Inner Mongolia was long overdue. I needed the rest and I had an incredible time. I'll be home in two weeks to the day!

In other news, Thanksgiving this week was strange to say the least. Our teachers took us to an "American" restaurant for a buffet. Unfortunately I wasn't very hungry and did not eat my 80 kuai worth of food. Turkey is expensive and relatively hard to find in China, but ACC provided four large roasts for us, along with mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. While the food was just so-so, the next day I went with some friends to a Japanese restaurant in Sanlituanr. I can't express how amazing this restaurant was. We paid 200 kuai each (about 30 American dollars) for unlimited steak, sushi, red wine and sake. So amazing.