Inner Mongolia

Sorry this took so long. I have been busy with my internship.

Last weekend I went to Inner Mongolia with my Abroad China group. It was an absolute blast. We took the overnight train, with beds stacked three high throughout the train car- no rooms, just beds. The beds were not particularly soft, and it was tough trying to get to sleep, but I managed to get a few hours squeezed in.

When we arrived, we took a bus to the grasslands. This was sort of a tourist trap, but since it was out in the middle of nowhere, and there weren’t a lot of tourists, it wasn’t cheesy or artificial. As we got off the bus, the Mongolians sang a traditional song and gave us baijiu- literally “white liquor”, but it is a rice liquor. We dipped our finger in the baijiu and flicked three times: once for the earth, once for the sky, and once just for us. Then we took a big swig. Baijiu tastes a little like rubbing alcohol with a dash of turpentine. Everyone had baijiu face, which entails involuntary twisting of the mouth, shaking of the head, and eyes rolling up into the skull.

After this we ate a lunch and headed out to ride horses. My friend, Sam, and I were last in line to get horses, and they ran out. So we “had” to ride 4-wheelers.

It was awesome.

We rode out to a small village, making sure we waved bye to all of the horse-riders, and drank milk tea and ate some sort of bread/noodle stuff. It wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t eat it every day, but once in my life isn’t bad.

When we drove back (very safely, mom) we had dinner. Halfway through the meal they dressed two of our interns up in traditional Mongolian dress and had some sort of ritual including the dreaded baijiu. Then they brought our whole roasted sheep. And to add to the realistic factor, they put lettuce in the mouths, as if they were still alive and grazing in a lettuce field. But they sure were tasty.

That night, there were fireworks and music. And more baijiu. Then, after the Mongolians got nice and liquored up, they decided to have a horse race, and wrestling matches.

The next morning, we woke up, jumped on the bus, and headed to the Gobi desert. Thankfully the sun was hidden behind the clouds, and it was relatively cool. We struggled our way up the dune to these giant vehicles that looked straight out of Star Wars. We drove out to a dune a little farther in the desert. Unfortunately, these pictures don’t quite capture the jaw-dropping vastness of the desert. It was breathtaking.

Then we got to ride camels. We saw a Middle Eastern guy…

Just kidding, that’s me! Chinese people thought it was one of the funnier things they had seen, I got about 175 pictures taken of and with me.

The camels were fun, I got to sit on a camel at the circus one year when I was little, but it was pretty exciting to ride a camel in the Gobi desert. The cool thing about camels is that they get down on their knees, and you don’t have to climb up on top of them like horses. You just sit down on them and they stand up, and when you’re done riding they get back on their knees and you just stand up and get off.

As we rode around, we got to see some sand castles the Mongolians made. We weren’t able to get close, but they were pretty interesting. The sand castles are those mounds in the last picture.

Things were starting to wrap up, so we got ready to leave. This meant sliding down the dune, on a sled. It was so cool. You can get going pretty fast on the dunes, because they are steep. One guy who wasn’t in our group lost control halfway down and slid about 15 feet without his sled. It was pretty funny, and he wasn’t hurt, so we all had a good laugh- he thought it was funny himself.

After that we grabbed dinner and jumped on the train. I didn’t have any problem going to sleep. At least there wasn’t any baijiu on the train…

By the way, I got my hair cut by a friend of ours named Trent. Australians sure can cut hair good. We did the obligatory Mohawk and mullet halfway through. In my modest opinion, I look pretty good.

Forbidden City

On Saturday I was able to go to the Forbidden City. Thankfully, it is no longer forbidden, as long as I pay 60 yuan. The Forbidden City was a palace for the emperor of China for more than 500 years. Then in the 1920’s the emperor was kicked out and the public were allowed into the inner and outer cities.

One thing that is so impressive about the Forbidden City is its size. From the north to south gate is over 300 yards, and the east to west gate is almost 250 yards. Inside the gates are thousands of buildings, artifacts, and statues.

The Forbidden City is across the street from Tiananmen Square. When you first enter, you are in the Outer City, and there is no charge to go inside. The Outer City is home to vendors selling trinkets, food, and (because it was sprinkling) umbrellas. There was a Starbucks opened in 2000, but it closed last year, which seems appropriate to me. Starbucks is good, but they don't always need to be everywhere. However, the vendors were selling lots of bottled water to fill in the void Starbucks left.

One guy there tried to convince me that he was a professor at “Washingtown D.C.” and that he was teaching Americans how to speak Chinese. All I needed to do was go have some tea with him and we could teach each other Chinese and English. I declined. In China, especially Beijing and Shanghai, people offering to teach you Chinese over tea is common. When you are done with the lesson and tea, the big strong waiter will give you the bill and it is 1000 yuan (almost $200). Then you’re strong armed into paying this exorbitant bill, which goes straight into the waiter and Wahingtown D.C. professor’s pockets.

So after being harassed, I paid the entrance fee to get into the Inner City. Inside there weren’t any vendors. The buildings lining the walls had rooms with old artifacts like swords, guns, military decorative clothes, old bronze pots and jade statues.

There were also several buildings with names like the Hall of Supreme Harmony or the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Most of these buildings looked similar because the walls were all red and the ceiling tiles were painted yellow. They were still quite striking. Here is the Hall of Supreme Harmony:

Another impressive aspect of the city was the wall. These tall red walls are built with bricks made of rice and white lime, and the mortar is made of rice and egg whites. It’s pretty amazing that they are still standing after 600 years.

There were lots of people repainting the walls and decorative tiles on the roofs. It is part of a restoration project, which I assume is to make the Forbidden City look great by the Olympics. This was amazing to see because the walls were all bright red, and the decorations were vibrant.

Go see the Forbidden City if you happen to find yourself in Beijing.

Last Saturday, I went to the Great Wall of China. It was not quite what I expected. I had always seen pictures with wide walkways and tall sides, surrounded by green hills, and covered with tourists. The section of the Great Wall we went to was not covered with tourists at all, in fact, it was closed to tourists. We were able to buy special tickets to enter a village and climb the wall. Pay attention to the word climb. Once we got to the village, which was surrounded by tall mountains, I was busy looking at the valley filled with lavender, and I didn’t even notice the Wall, which was at the top of the mountain.
It wasn’t until lunch that I looked up and saw the Wall through the fog.
Fog is another important word in this story.
After lunch our tour guide showed up to lead us to the Wall. We started walking down a road the town had just finished building, which I assumed led up to the Wall, but instead went by a small muddy path. This was the path we took. This picture is of my group climbing up the mountain through the trees, shrubs, and muddy rocks.

Once we got to the top we were a little surprised, this wasn’t what we were expecting. It was raining, and very foggy, and the parts of the wall were overgrown with shrubs and trees. Some sections had fallen over or disintegrated. The walls didn’t have railings in some parts, and often times we were walking on a two foot wide path with trees to our left and a really long drop on our right (we could see the tops of the trees over the edge, but no farther, the ground was obscured by fog, but the drop would be at least 30 feet to the top of a tree).
The stairs were not exactly wheelchair accessible either. These steps were 2 feet tall and 6 inches deep in some parts. It was almost like climbing a really old stone ladder.
So while we carefully climbed up and down the stairs, making sure not to slip or step on one of the loose rocks, our tour guide was literally running down the steps. He was chain smoking the entire time too. I guess since he runs up and down the Great Wall, he isn’t worried about smoking killing him. This was our tour guide in the middle:

After a couple hours of walking around the Wall, we decided to come down. Once we got to the bottom, we were able to relax and eat dinner. Everyone was exhausted, muddy, and hungry. A few had fallen and scratched or bruised themselves. But even though this wasn’t quite what we were expecting, it was better.
We were able to see what many people never had, and never will. If it isn’t opened to tourists, then we have been fortunate to see it, and if this is opened to tourists, it will be eventually covered in Doritos bags, bathrooms, elevators, and t-shirt stands. The Wall looked just like it has since it was built, and it was breathtaking when the fog cleared. It truly is a Great Wall.