Blogs from Inner Mongolia, China, Asia - page 8

Day 4 The next morning, we woke up, still freezing and stiff, but looking forward to a nice breakfast. Breakfast was at 7:30am again, and we were greeted with some rice porridge, veggies, and bread. We planned to leave right after breakfast at 8am, so we hurried back to our tents, grabbed our bags, and clambered onto the warm relief of the bus. After sitting on the bus for about 10 minutes or so, our tour guide came on and told us that there was a small problem, and we needed to get off. So we were sent back into the cold to wait. No one knew what the problem was until we saw the bus driver check the engine: it had frozen over night. While he fixed it we killed time practicing our taiji, which ... read more

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 ... read more

The birds have been winging it southwards, the winds aiding them. We’ve been steadily pedaling north, against the wind. The mountains and high grasslands are an almost distant memory as all we’ve seen for the last month has been flat dry arid scrubland. The sun sets quicker and we can smell the changing season even in the bleak blandscapes of one of the driest parts of China. The roads are long and flat often converging in the distant horizon in a hazy point. Apart from headwinds cycling is a breeze after the peaks and passes of Sichuan. We left Langmusi to bump into another Chinese cyclist on the first slope out of town. Kevin had cycled in from the Qinghai Lake and seemed rather worn for it. Suffering from a strained muscle the slope wasn’t kind ... read more

I never made it to the sand dunes or grasslands of Inner Mongolia, but the capital city of Hohhot was extremely interesting. We set off on a Friday night for a location further north, but by the time we had bought our tickets, all of the beds had been sold out, and only seats were left. We spent the whole night and the rest of the next day sitting in seats that couldn't recline on a crowded train as it wound through the country side of China (although there were some pretty areas, that last part might sound much more majestic than it actually was). You see, not only can you buy tickets for beds and seats on trains in China, but you can also buy "standing" tickets which means that you pay to stand in ... read more

So we have a ten day "field trip" that starts today (officially tomorrow) where we the students are supposed to choose some place to go (preferably outside of Tianjin) to "study" some aspect of Chinese culture. I am traveling in a group of four people. We were originally planning on going to Sichuan, but the train tickets leaving from both Tianjin and Beijing to Chengdu on the dates we wanted to leave were sold out. Change of plan - now we're going to the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, not to be confused with the country of Mongolia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Mongolia I'm going to be perfectly honest - I'm not exactly sure what we're going to do there... I don't really know anything about Inner Mongolia, but I think it's best known for it's sprawling grass lands.... I ... read more