On Tuesday April the 8th, I woke up to a rainy, cloudy day. Nevertheless, a day off. Seeing that our school's busiest days are the days that regular Chinese have off, we get our free time on Mondays and Wednesdays. And there I was, waking up to some Chinese 'talkshow' radio station at 7 in the morning! Aaargghh! For a good reason though; There was a minibus ready and waiting to take us all on a staff trip into Hohhot's suroundings. Itinerary: Mengnu milk plant, China's most known milk brand, situated for a large part in Inner Mongolia, Mei Dai Zhao temple and part of the Kubuqi desert, a slice of Sahara dropped right into the Nei Munggul interior. After a few cans of beer to start the new day, we arrived fairly quickly at the ... read more

Sharing the same name, one ancient and one brandnew, I decided to visit both locations in one day with a friend. One's a 7-storey octagonal tower, built in the Liao dynasty, the other's an airport branding the same name and only finished it's first expansion recently. Bai ta, also known as 'the white pagoda' is 18 km's east of Hohhot, or some 4 km's east of the airport. With a height of 55.6 meters, it stands quite tall in the surrounding flat landscape, dominated by brick walls and dry land. The Liao dynasty took place somewhere between 907 and 1125 A.C., created by a tribe that called themselves the 'Khitan'. Their capital is the same as the present day capital; Beijing, or then known as Yanjing. For full information check the next link: The full extend ... read more

Day two was reserved for the famous hanging monastry, located some 65 km's south east of Datong, and build into the Heng Shan sacred mountain. It's a pretty impressive sight, although very touristy. The weather on this day was absolutely freezing, so my enjoyment of the monastry was tampered a bit by not being able to feel my hands and face. Taking photo's becomes slightly difficult as well, but luckily I didn't drop my camera for a second time. To get to the site, we took a bus from Datong to the town of Hunyuan, where a short taxi drive takes you to the sight. Although it was stiflingly cold, I managed to walk around for what was probably more than an hour. Even walked back a bit along the road to take a shot of ... read more

Having finished work and now getting a week off for Chinese new year festivities, I'm in a very good mood. Tomorrow (07-02) is new year's day, so at the moment there is loads of fireworks being fired in the streets. Especially the loud bangs, favourably the ones that last a minute or longer seem to be very popular, they woke me up at 09:30 this morning after a wild and extremely fun night in Hohhot's nightlife. Weirdly enough, everything is for sale on the streets! It's actually being sold year-round in the shops, fireworks are used to celebrate birthdays, weddings etc. Tomorrow I will be leaving to Datong to visit some of the local sights with the other foreign teachers. Should be good. Another exciting train trip to look forward to! See you in the year ... read more

It was on Monday the 17th of December when I flew out of Hohhot's new Baita airport to Beijing. A flight of just an hour compared to a gruesome 10 hour overnight train. From Beijing another flight to bustling Hong Kong, which was a bit of a shock to the system coming from Inner Mongolia. For that reason I got ripped off immensely when having a haircut in Kowloon. Being my naive self, I just walked in without asking for a price.....I'll not tell you what I ended up paying for this badly done haircut. Wouldn't happen to you in Hohhot I reckon. I was only in Hong Kong for 3 days, hoping to get a visa with an undetermined amount of days, but didn't mind, because I wasn't swimming in money really, and well, Hong ... read more