You just never know where we'll pop up next!!!
And last weekend was no exception!
Have you ever heard of a yurt??? No??? It's kind of like a giant tent- a portable house before the days of RVs, mobile homes and camper vans.
Ever since we moved to China I've seen photos of yurts in Inner Mongolia (which is in China) and I thought it would be fun to spend ONE night in one. And guess what? I got my wish!!!
And even better- we traveled with our friends to Inner Mongolia. Traveling around China is DEFINITELY more fun with friends!!!!
Off we go to HOHHOT in Inner Mongolia!!
(What kind of name is Hohhot anyway??? It has a funny ring to it….and it's almost a palindrome. P.S: In Mandarin Hohhot is Hūhéhàotè BUT in Mongol it is Hohhot. Just goes to show the Chinese have to change EVERY name to suit themselves!!!).
Joining us on this little weekend excursion are Debbie, Croydon, Marko and Juandre.
🙂
Saturday – September 8, 2012:
Our room at the hotel:
Time for breakfast!
We've checked out and it's time to head out to the van….
Off we go! We've got lots to see and do today!!!!
Our little tour bus:
First destination for today- The Qing Princess House (which has been completely rebuilt so it's not the original structure):
jumping for joy!!!
Exploring the museum…
Let's get back in the van and head to the Grasslands!!!!
What a wreck!!!! :
Debbie played a song ("Back in Time") on her iPad….it's from one of her favorite music artists (Pitbull). The kids LOVED singing along to it!!!!
We heard lots of "Oh, baby! Oh baby!" So funny!
And now we're finally on the plateau they call the grasslands (we're at a higher elevation now):
Well, we're here! (I mean we're at the "yurt complex" where we'll be spending the night):
Let's just take a quick look around while we wait for our guide to get our room arrangements taken care of.
Well, it looks as if we're in two of the concrete "yurts". I can't really bring myself to call them yurts as they're really round brick buildings, right??? I mean, no one in their right mind would try to move one of these suckers! (and portability is the goal of yurts, right?????)
We've got four so-called yurts booked between us. These are apparently the Luxury Yurts. We asked if we could stay the night in one of the fabric/tent-like ones they have on the premises but apparently they're all booked up. Darn.
let's take a look inside one of these yurts:
Annika and Mark are in one yurt and Ava and I are in the other yurt.
Interesting….so many ammenities (electricity, plumbing, TV) but yet no heater.
Check out this negative image lady bug:
Check out this lovely row of yurts. Apparently the three fabric covered ones are where special dinners take place (we'll get to peak inside one of them later):
Grace just said it's time to head to lunch. This is the restaurant for the "yurt complex" we're staying at:
Oh my! Check out the inside of this restaurant:
I'm not sure what's going on but they just placed white silk scarves around our necks and now some lovely ladies gave the grown-ups these cups of bai jiu to sip (only one sip or gulp) and then take away the cup. No idea what it's supposed to mean BUT I can tell you that bai jiu is the nastiest alcohol on this planet!!!
Let's go for a walk…. I want to see the grasslands first-hand:
The kids had an awesome time running on the grass. So open. So free. So blue!!! And the air- while there was a certain amount of horse pee smell it also smelled far cleaner than the air in Tianjin. What a nice change!
The kids picked bouquets of lovely, petite flowers growing wild….
Time to head back to our complex. And it looks like it's time for a show of sorts. Grace says they're going to do a Mongolian horse race and Mongolian wrestling (I have absolutely NO idea what makes it Mongolian):
The horses here are all significantly smaller than their counterparts I've seen in the USA. (not that I know much about horses)
Grace said it's time to head to see something else….perhaps we're going to see the Mongolian family (at least that's what is on our schedule). So off we go on a super bumpy ride on the country roads in our van (can you hear the sounds of the happy, shrieking kids in the background??):
Join us for a cup of milk tea, won't you???
apparently all yurts are supposed to have a picture of Genghis Khan:
Okay, so we were wrong. We're not going to meet a "real" Mongolian family. Instead we're going to get a serving of milk tea and try to learn a little about it. It's not at all sweet. The round floating balls are toasted millet seeds (they add some nice crunch). The other additives are different milk products (one looks like thinly sliced bread which is in fact dried milk skin- you know- the skin of milk that forms on top of a cup of hot milk??? They dry it and it to their milk tea! There are also two kinds of other milk products that look more like white tablets or candies.)
Honestly, I like this kind of tea. It's definitely different and unusual but in a good sort of way!
Checking out the area around the milk tea yurt:
Mark took the following photos of the edited group:
I have to admit I'm a little bummed I didn't get to see this stone structure in person.
And now they're back again! (about ten to fifteen minutes later)
Time to go back home. Since Annika got to ride with Daddy on the four-wheeler we've promised Ava she can ride on a house.
Back at the "ranch":
But guess what???? Apparently Ava is too short to ride on a horse and they won't let her ride with an adult! GRRRRRRrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!
<<<insert the sound of sobbing and very upset children>>>
We saw this ice cream cooler in the tiny store associated with our yurt complex:
Let's go for a walk….I think that might help perk up some of these sad kids:
The kids have discovered a new hobby: hurling rocks or clumps of hard soil at the dried river bank to make chunks of it fall off.
And now the dads got into the swing of things.
Just to see if he could….Croydon carries a giant rock over…
and throws it down near the edge to see if he can make a part of the "cliff" collapse.
Well, that was good "clean" fun (now that everyone is dirty)! Let's continue on our walk.
A scene on the grasslands:
Mark and the girls go say hello to some of the horses (or try to):
We saw several of these:
I think it's time to head to dinner….. shall we go???
Looks like we've got to wait a few minutes before we can be seated. Let's look around the "yurt complex".
Here's the tiny little shop associated with this complex (we bought our ice cream and a bar of soap for our bathroom sink in here):
The girls goofing around:
Finally!!! They can seat us inside the restaurant. Let's go!
Thank Heavens! No bai jiu for us this evening!!!!
Ah…..now what???
The sun has set while we were eating dinner. Oh my. It really gets cold in these parts after the sun goes down!!! Brrrr!!!!!! I think we're going to pile on warmer clothes which we thankfully brought with us.
Grace says there will be a show this evening outside. I think we'll go find some beer and drinks for the kids while we wait for the show to start.
We're getting cold and tired. I think it's time to head back to our yurts and turn in.
We did have to go out for a short walk outside to view the beautiful, clear night sky:
I hope you're bundled up and have warm clothes with you. I think it's going to be a chilly night!
***Good Night!***
Tune in tomorrow for Sunday's installment of our Inner Mongolia journey.
Comments
One response to “Hohhot:: A Journey with Friends into Inner Mongolia”
Awesome!