内 蒙古 - Inner Mongolia- day 1

After being in China for almost a month and writing and re-writing multiple emails about my experiences here, I decided to start a blog to share my experiences with everyone at once.

A couple of weekends ago (Oct. 1st) was the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which is a huge deal here. It also corresponds with the mid-autumn festival. Because of this, everyone in China gets a super long 8 day vacation...everyone except for us. But we did get a 4 day break which was what we usually get back at home, and a few of us chose to take a trip to Inner Mongolia. It started off with a group of six: me, Monica Yee (my roomate and friend from the Bay Area, also an LC student), Matt Hess (an LC student from Seattle who is a year older than Monica and I), Jake Peterson (a Junior from Minnesota who goes to St. John's University), Will Johnson (a senior from Rhode Island who goes to Connecticut College), Ben Henderson (a senior from Denver who goes to Denver University). Most people from our program were trying to go further away to places such as Shanghai and Yellow Mountains because this break is our only break during the entire semester. After a few days, lots of people's plans started to fall through, and our group began to grow. By the time we were finalized, we had 21 people.

The night before we left, we all tried staying up because we had to wake up at 4 to trek over to the bus. Some of us, me included, had tons of work (essays and midterm preparation) that was all due the monday we came back from break. So I studied and wrote while struggling to stay awake. I didn't quite make it. Went to bed at about 3am and squeezed in about an hour of sleep before having to get up, grab our stuff, and head out the 西 门 儿 or west gate to catch a taxi. The bus was leaving from Beijing Language and Culture University, which is about a 15元 cab ride or about an hour walk from outside of the gate. We planned ahead and gave ourselves about an hour and a half to get there, because a taxi would only take 20 minutes and we wanted to be early. What we failed to realize is that the morning we were leaving (Thursday Oct. 1st) was the 60th anniversary, and there were hardly any taxis and almost no cars around. There were only busses, a long line of busses, transporting performers downtown for the celebrations. The first group (cabs are in groups of 4) was able to get a cab in no time. We waited a while longer and had no luck, so we started to walk, just in case. Then another group got a taxi, and we kept walking, with all of our bags no less. Then another group got a cab, and four of us were left, with all of our things (we really should have thought to stuff our bags in one of the other cabs) and we walked and walked and walked, got lost, asked for directions, and walked some more. We finally made it to the bus, sweaty, late, and grouchy.. but we made it. And our trip to Inner Mongolia began.

Day 1

So tired and sore as we were from the long walk and lack of sleep, we embarked on our first of many long bus rides. After about 7 hours of drifting in and out of sleep, listening to the ipod, talking story, telling jokes, and playing hangman, we stopped for lunch. Chinese style of course. All of the meals in Inner mongolia pretty much consisted of the same food, served family style. The cool thing about this restaurant was that there were people outside selling, carving, and pounding peanuts. They were selling a bunch of nuts and fruits. My friend Jake bought a bag of dried plum, and it was somewhat like li hing mui but not so dry, it had a texture more like dried mango, but it had a less strong li hing mui taste. Probably because there was no salt, sugar or licorice added. The man carving was amazing, very quick. He made a keychain with a wooden ball on it. This ball was special because there were two other ball inside of it, one within the other. The amazing part was that there was no separation or space in the first or second balls to put the other ball in it.. the inner balls had to be carved through the first one. It may be hard to picture, but it was impressive. I was told that it was an ancient Chinese secret, which it may or may not have been, but the effect was good. The peanut pounders seemed to be making a Chinese peanut brittle, which they were giving out in small samples. It was yummy and tasted almost exactly like the peanut brittle back in the states.

After lunch, we loaded back onto the bus and headed to the mountain temple (about another hour). Once we reached it, it was made perfectly clear that we were no longer in Beijing. The air was much more crisp, and there was no more smog. It was gorgeous and it felt amazing to take a clean breath. It was a beautiful day, clear skies and in the high 60's. We walked around the temple and chatted with a couple security guards. When taking a picture in front of a bush, I accidentally brushed my hand against it and felt a sharp pain. I figured it was just a pokey bush and thought nothing of it. A couple minutes later a rash broke out on my hand that was itchy and painful. But luckily it went away within the hour so I didn't have to worry about it much. After exiting the mountain temple, we got back on the bus for another long trip.

This time it was about 3 or 4 hours before reaching our next destination, the Buddhist Caves. These, like mostly everything I've seen here, are marvels of construction. They were giant caves and tunnels with Buddha and other figures painted or carved throughout the caves. And of course, like most other tourist places I've been to, there were vendors crowding the area in front of the caves. It fascinates me how much the people capitalize on tourism here. The great wall, all of the temples, the mountain resort, the summer palace; there is never a lack of vendors who will sell you anything from a bottle of water and a popsicle to jewelry and incense. Maybe they have a different view on exploitation and commercialization of their historic sites; maybe it has to do with the fact that this is how they make a living, and because there are so many people here that this type of work is necessary. Whatever the reason, if you are in China frequenting tourist haunts, and dread the lack of trinkets and hustling sales people, have no fear because they are EVERYWHERE. While at the Buddhist temple, I went to use the restroom and as i moved to the squat position required of toilets here, somehow, my camera fell out of my bag and into the toilet, becoming completely submerged in water. I was quick to get it, but i let it dry out for the remainder of the trip. It works fine now, but I couldn't take any pictures over the trip so most of the pictures in this blog were taken by friends of mine on the trip.

After the caves and my camera ordeal, we had a 2 hour bus ride to dinner, which was at our hotel. Before dinner, we checked into our rooms. This was a 2 star hotel, so we weren't expecting much, but it was nice. The only odd thing was that the shower in the bathroom was not contained. At first we thought that we didn't have a shower, but then we saw the shower head just floating in the corner of the bathroom. When we took a shower, everything got wet: the toilet, the sink, and anything else that may have been in the bathroom. After dropping off our stuff and eating dinner, we headed out into the city (small city) to explore. While trying to figure out which restaurant to settle in, crowds began to gather around us. First it was just a couple people who stopped and stared, then more, and more. It seemed that sightings of foreigners were rare to them. Perhaps because we are used to living in Beijing where foreigners are plentiful, we didn't expect this type of reaction. Maybe in a less touristy area such as this, tourist sightings are rare and exciting. To escape the crowd, a few of us slipped into a restaurant. The owner and his friend were sitting at a table drinking 啤酒 (beer) and eating 串儿 (a food resembling shish kabobs). They sat us down and were handing us free food and drink, encouraging us to 干杯（clear your glass) and eat an unlimited amount of 羊 串儿 (lamb). It was interesting how fascinated they were with us, well not so much with me, more so with people like Zach (Gallgher, a junior from American University), who is 6' 4" and blonde. It was awesome to see the crossing of cultures as we cried "干杯" and the chinese cried "cheers".

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