Inner Mongolia

It was so refreshing to be somewhere with fresh air and stars in the sky. I don’t think I have ever seen that many stars. It was also great to not be surrounded by buildings wherever you look.

When we arrived it was about midnight. As we stepped off the bus, they greeted us with singing and dancing, and “shots” of baijiu. And by shots I mean small bowls filled with about 3 shots worth of baijiu. For those of you who have never had baijiu before, wikipedia says, “non-Chinese reviewers, comment unfavorably on the taste of baijiu, comparing it with paint thinner, rubbing alcohol, and diesel fuel.” Rumor had it, that it was rude if you didn’t drink and finish the baijiu they gave you. They had us all take one when we got off the bus, ate dinner, and if we bought something. Too much.

There were so many yurts, we decided to dub it a "yurt-tel"

Our first night in Inner Mongolia we slept in yurts. They consisted of 2 beds, a TV, toilet, shower, and sink. It was late and we had just had a full day of traveling, so I was pretty excited to finally get some sleep. I was about to jump into our bed when I spotted an intruder. There was a big beetle like bug about the size of a quarter crawling on my pillow! That quickly deterred any feelings of wanting to go to sleep. My roommate and I kinda freaked out and had some of the guys take care of it and inspect the rest of our bed, where we found 3 more unwanted guests. It took a while before we got to bed.

Stop 1

Stop 2

Stop 3

Stop 5

 

The next morning we got up and ate breakfast. Today we were going to ride some horses to 5 “exciting” spots. Some people didn’t want to pay for a horse and asked if they could walk, but the tour guide insisted that the spots would take over an hour to walk from one to the other, so most people caved and rented a horse for the day. Stop 1 was literally about a 10 min horseback ride away and was a field of grass. We looked at each other as if it was a joke. Stop 2 was some grass with sheep. Stop 3 you got to walk up a hill and look at some rocks. Stop 4 was some more grass and Stop 5 was some cows. At this point we felt like we got scammed. We paid a decent amount of money to ride horses to 5 “exciting” places, and as exciting as the grass and rocks were, it just wasn’t what we expected. All in all it was fun, but nothing compared to how the next day was.

Once we got back, we got to watch them race some of their horses and then wrestle each other. Once they were done wrestling, they asked if any of us wanted to try, so we nominated 4 of our guys to wrestle the Inner Mongolian way. I think the locals got more entertainment out of watching some wai guo ren (foreigners) try to fight than we did. Next we played some volleyball with more of the locals with our makeshift net, which was pretty much just a string, ate lunch, then finally headed to the desert!

 

The desert was by far my favorite part of the trip. Going to the Gobi Desert made the whole trip worth going to Inner Mongolia. It was basically an amusement park in the middle of a desert. We rode camels, went 4-wheeling, zip lining, dune jumping, had a water fight, saw some crazy sand castles, and got lots and lots of sand in our shoes. I think I had to empty my shoes about 10 times cause of all the sand. The entire day was amazing. One thing I find really interesting about the terrain here is that it changes so quickly and drastically. One minute you will be in the city, the next minute you will be in the middle of the mountains, and the next you will be in the desert.

After a fun filled day we headed to our next hotel.

My standards for “good” hotel have drastically gone down. If you are traveling in China, and don’t want to spend a fortune, then don’t hold things like hygiene, cleanliness, safety, and comfort up to Western standards of living. For example, most of my beds were rock solid infested with bugs, showers ice cold, and windows “fixed” with cardboard, or had missing screens completely (even on the 6^th floor). Every place also provided us with pre-used shower shoes! China seems to really put in extra effort to go green!

Our final hotel room was size of a small shed. Our beds were literally wooden boxes with sheets over it. And of course, what’s a hotel in china without some bugs in your bed? Our bathroom could barely fit one person in it, and at first glance looked like it didn’t have a shower. But if you looked closely, you could spot a little spout right above the toilet. Think of the convenience of it! You could use the toilet, take a shower, reach the sink to brush your teeth, and if you moved the TV over slightly you could watch TV all at the same time! You could be ready for the whole day in less than 10 minutes!

It is definitely a Western thing to want cold beverages. The Chinese think cold things will make you sick or throw off your body’s fungshwey. One time I tried asking someone on the street where I could get some ice and they were very confused. I tried describing it to them, but they weren’t getting it. I think it’s ironic that the only cold water you can get in China is the water from the shower that will either give you hypothermia when you shower, or get you sick when you drink it.

Our final day was spent looking at caves with huge temples and statues carved in the rocks and the Hanging temple.

St. Joseph's Cathedral

Every Tuesday we only have 2 hours of class (instead of 4), and for the second half of class we're given a mission to go somewhere we've never been by means of bus and learn some new vocab. This past week I chose to go to St. Joseph's Cathedral.

Last year they held service everyday of the week, but since the government disapproved, they had to change it to only two services once a week on Sundays.

 A couple weekends ago I checked out one of the servies. The place was packed with people (mostly elderly women). Every seat was taken and there were a bunch of people standing. As far as I could tell, it seemed like a traditional Catholic service. They read from the Bible, sang some hymns, and sprinkled people with holy water. I couldn't make out most of what they were saying cause we have never really studied vacab to relate to a church setting, but I think they were talking about he importants of the Sabbath day. 

Beijing!

Beijing is the kind or city I could definitely see myself going back to. Beijing is a lot more developed than Tianjin, and there seems to be a lot more people who speak English.


It's about a 2 hour bus ride to Beijing by bus and a 30 min. ride by speed train.


We got ourselves some famous (cao ya) Roasted Peking Duck. It was delicious! really fatty and oily, but really good! the other food was just (mama huhu) so so. After they were done cutting off the meat, they gave us the gizzards, which is pretty much just rest of the duck disassembled with a buter knife. That was kind of a wild card, you never knew which part of the duck you were gonna get! We made a game out of it. You would pick a piece out of the disfigured pile of bones, and after eating off the meat (or whatever it was) off the bones,  you got to guess what part of the duck's skeleton you uncovered! 

Then we went on to see a Peking Opera. They preformed "Farewell my Concubine,""The Drunken Concubine,""...,"and "....." (this blog is a work in progress)

Our Hotel was downtown Beijing and way nicer than our dorms.

PEARL MARKET


The best English was spoken at the Pearl Market. It's basically a big building filled with tons of fake copies of name brand everything. electronics, shoes, clothes, bags, purses, scarves. You name it, they have a fake copy of it. And they are not shy about letting you know they have it. Except they try to play it off like it's the real thing.




If you show any interrest at all (or get within a yard of their booth), they will shove whatever they have in your face, pull on your clothes, and tell you how famous and how great the quality of their product is.

This is where we got to practice our bargaining skills. Their favorite phrases to try and get you to buy things were something a long the lines of, "Because you are my first customer, and you're my friend, and we are like seeesters, i give you this price (types in an outrageous price on calculator). Because you are so beautiful, you need a beautiful bag! Other people give you this price (types in an even more outrageous price on calculator), but i give you this price! (types in regular outrageous price)." Our teachers told us, to avoid getting scammed we should set an outrageously low price (about 1/4 the original price they ask). Before I bought anything thought I would test the waters, so pretend to want to buy a small purse. The lady did her little routine and set her price of 400 块. I laughed and started waking away. She yelled at me to come back and to name my price, and I proceeded to laugh again and say she didn't want to know my price. But she insisted (they always do) and I typed in a whopping 50 块 on the calculator (and that was generous). Her face had a disgust look on it, followed by a "You tell me that price, I kill you!" "How about this price? (300 块 )." I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. She had a partner in crime with her who was being all sassy and just kept saying things like "Are you crazy? This a good purse! I can't believe you!" We talked back and forth for a while, and I pretended to walk away a couple times (they always firmly grab your arm to stop you from leaving and beg you to come back by lowering their price again). She kept lowering her price and I wouldn't budge. About 8 min. in I got her down to 55 块. Again, I didn't actually want the purse, I was just playing a game of how low I can get her to go. After more threats and a mix of insults and complements, it seemed like she wouldn't budge, so I started to leave thinking that was as low as I could get her. They kept saying things like "It only 5 块!" Once I finally escaped her death grip and walked away I heard her yell, "Fine! You I give it to you for 50 块!"


Victory.


I turned around and said I didn't want it anymore. So I figured that if she settled for 50 块, then there is a chance I can go even lower! I went to the next booth that had the exact same purse, to see if I can do even better. I let the lady do the same routine and after she set her price I thought I could save some time by telling her someone already offered me 50 块 for it. She seemed slightly flustered and angrily responded with "Who say dat? Who say 50 块?" then quickly changed the price to 40 块. I realized that was a quick shortcut, so I said I had another person offer me 30 块 ( i know, not so smooth). She caught on fast and said "First you say someone give you 50 块, then you say 30 块! Next you say someone give it to you for free!" I had lost my game face at this point and just started laughing at my situation. My friend (who is a bargaining disaster was originally ready to settle for 150 块 and eventually gave in at 40 块) I settled for 40 块, but I have my suspicions that I could have gotten her to go lower.


I eventually got some pearls. My laoshi (teacher) said I got them for a decent price.




TIANANMEN SQUARE...


GARDEN

We didn't have the time we wanted to go into the Forbidden City, so we went in to the Garden that was to the side of it.

TEMPLE OF HEAVEN

Tianjin Zoo!

The zoo was an interesting experience. They had a lot of the pretty standard animals: bears, giraffes, elephants, lions, tigers, and a plethora of small birds, reptiles, and rodents. The main attraction was, of course, the pandas. They had regular pandas and red pandas.

This guy was my favorite.

He was huge.

Baby lamb playing with a stick.

And a lot of fun to watch.

 People would throw some things at the bears to get them to fight.

The zoo landscaping was really nice. Lots of flowers and trees, but the animal exhibits were kind of sad. Almost none of them had trees or grass in them, and it was way to easy for people to throw things at the animals to make them move or interact some way. A zoo like this would not exist in the states, PETA would have a fit.





Besides the trees and flowers, the park itself seemed kind of run down. It looked like it was really nice when they first buit it, but have never kept up with any of the maintenance. They had some big tacky animal statues for decorations.

As we were strolling through the park, it started to downpour on us when we we were in middle of a courtyard, the furthest point from any shelter. So we booked it to the elephant house. Since the city is so polluted, it's acid rain. Every time it rains, it just feels dirty. It makes your skin feel sticky an gross, and if you get some in your eye it burns a little bit. It's not the kind of 'let's go out side and try to catch raindrops in your mouth' kind of rain.

The elephants had one of the saddest exhibits. They were in a small dirty room, with a small window, a bucket of water, and some hay.

Red Panda

cat house

oh yeah, they had dinosaurs too!