Inner Mongolia

Over Spring Break, I went to Inner Mongolia. I went with 8 other people, which was the perfect number of people to go with- not too big, but still big enough to find a companion if I wanted to venture off. We took an overnight train there and arrived at 8 am. Our timing ended up being perfect, because we arrived early enough to catch a bus to the grasslands. The grasslands weren't as green as I expect (in fact, the scenery reminded me of a hillier version of Oklahoma), but it was still so great to be out of the city and be able to see a full blanket of stars. When we arrived on the farm, the host mother made us a traditional Mongolian meal, which again, was not what we expected. Rumor had it that Mongolia cuisine is heavy in meat and cheese, and considering Chinese people don't like cheese (so much so that when someone takes your picture they won't say 1..2..3..cheese! but instead 1...2...3..eggplant!), so I was really excited to eat lotsa cheese. However, although the dishes did have cheese, they were flavorless or sweet as sugar- nothing like normal cheese. Strange, but still good.
After we ate we went horseback riding. I opted for the pretty white horse, which backfired pretty quickly. Apparently my horse was too pretty to do work (I got the Anwesha of horses!!), so he refused to move. I ended up taking a motorcycle back, but I was really happy with that. I had to convince the guy to let me ride it, but he finally gave in, then kept changing the settings so I could go faster and faster through the countryside. I suppose I'm just a city girl at heart!
Later that evening, we walked around the farm then settled into our yurt (yes a yurt!) to play a few rounds of intense Mafia (which is a game where you try to guess who's the town killer). Considering the fact that I've only played Mafia with a bunch of 10-year-olds on the way to church camp, I've never seen so much emotion revolving around the accusations on who killed who. We had so much fun, we hardly even noticed how bitterly cold it was.
The next day, we returned to the city to see the sites of Hohot and eat some good Mongolian food. On the way, we ran into an expat who now resided in Hohot, and he gave us some tips on where to go. He said if we wanted to experience something completely different from Beijing, we should check out A-Go-Go- a tranny bar! So that night, we went there and had so much fun watching men dressed up as women sing and dance on stage. Everyone was really friendly there, which made for a great opportunity to practice my Chinese. Who knew a tranny bar would be the best place to go to in Inner Mongolia?
The next morning we left at the break of dawn to go to the Gobi Dessert. When we arrived, we were greeted by a full band and women dressed in traditional Mongolian wear. As custom dictated, we all had to take a sip of 白酒 (extremely strong Chinese liquor) before we could eat lunch. Not exactly how I wanted to start off my day, but I had to take a sip as to not be rude. We also had to do the ritual again after lunch- painful!! We then headed into heart of the Gobi Desert by the best mode of transportation possible: camelback. We rode camels for about an hour, then stopped so we could play in the sand and slide down the sand dooms. Most of our electronics got destroyed by the sand, and we all came back filthy, but no one cared- we had the time of our lives.
Once we got back from the desert, we packed up our stuff to head back to Beijing. We were running late, so we didn't have time to eat let alone shower...a fact that ironically only the guys were complaining about! The bus we took was really intense- we had really small beds stacked on top of each other in rows of 3 beds. It wasn't very comfortable to say the least, but it was a very fitting end to our "rugged outdoors" trip.

Below are some pictures from Mongolia. I've also gone through my previous postings and added pictures, I hope you enjoy!

Photos from the Grasslands:
Ali, Bailey, Melissa, and I in front of a photo of Genghis Khan inside our yurt:


Mongolian Food:

(You're supposed to take the crackers, dip them in the white flavorless cheese so you can then dip in the grain, then finish with the sweet cheese in the middle...
But everyone ended up just eating the crackers with the flavorless tea-the grain was too troublesome- and dropping the sweet cheese into their tea like sugar cubes. Close enough?)

Our Hostel Back in HoHot:


This Mongolian kid kept calling Us “外鬼“ which means white ghost/devil, so obviously we had to play with him for awhile:


Pictures from the Gobi Desert:

Photo Shoot + My Trip to Hangzhou

The week before last was extremely eventful. A while back my purse was stolen from a restaurant's coatcheck, so I went on Beijing's version of Craiglist to post a bad review about it. To my surprise, I got an email in response asking me if I was the girl in my user picture and if so, if I wanted a modeling gig. The gig was for a dental company, so on top of getting paid, I got free teeth whitening out of it. 太好了! The shoot was a lot of fun, and I actually ended up knowing one of the girls there! We had met earlier in the semester at a Paul Van Dyk concert and exchanged numbers, but neither one of us had cell phones at the time and scraps of paper are hard to hold onto at a concert, so I thought I'd never see her again. There were less than 10 models at the shoot, which goes to show how small of a world it is!

Photos from the photo shoot:
Getting Ready:

Lots of Waiting:


Later that week, my program arranged for us to go to Hangzhou, which is a really pretty city in the south of China (close to Shanghai). It's China's #1 tourist spot, so the city was extremely clean; in fact, littering and spitting are outlawed. We took a boat across the West Lake, which is a really famous scenic spot (it's actually pictured on the back of the 1 yuan). Then we went to the Lingyin Monastery. Lingyin Monastery is China's oldest standing monastery and is in the top 10 most famous Buddhist temples in China, so I felt really lucky to have the opportunity to explore it.
The next day, I went with a few friends to the "snack street," which would be better described as a shopping street considering the food section was only an alley. They had really great stuff though. Usually in China I have to sift through tons of junk to find something I like, but everything I saw there I wanted to buy. My best purchase was a bag of 龙井问茶, China's most prized green tea that is only grown in Hangzhou.
We left on Sunday, much to our dismay. Hangzhou is so beautiful that none of us wanted to leave. Our only motivation for returning to Beijing was that next week was Spring Break, and we would be off to Inner Mongolia to eat cheese and ride camels， 挺热闹！!

Pictures from Hangzhou:
Hangzhou's West Lake (in comparison to the back of China's yuan):


Practicing the ""Beijing Squat":


Hangzhou's West Lake:




Rachel, Me, Ali, and Melissa Posing with the Boatman (he was embarrassed that he was eating ice cream in our picture haha!):


Pictures from Lingyin Monastery:






China's Best Rickshaw Driver (this guy first took all 4 of us in the back of his 2-seater rickshaw, then later when he took Ali and I he literally stopped his rickshaw to laugh at a woman who lost her shoe while riding a bike, then said "我很开心“ aka "I'm very open-hearted..I'd say so!):