内蒙古 (Inner Mongolia)

hey,

I would have posted earlier but the internet in my building has been down all weekend so I couldn’t post when I got home last night. I think it had something to do with the new month and they didn’t realize we all paid for it because everyone in the program couldn’t log on to the internet. On Friday right after I posted I headed over to say hi to my street friends again. I forgot to bring my flash drive with the pictures but I brought it to show them today (Monday).  It was around lunch so they gave me some of their lunch and I couldn’t refuse. Then I went to buy skewers and brought it back to them so I could return the favor. They didn’t seem to want them so I dropped them in their container. They also returned the favor and dropped more of their lunch in mine so in the end we ended up eating half of the other person’s lunch. After that they tried to give me a free shaved ice bowl. I tried to pay but Francis took the fanny pack they use to collect their money and I literally chased him around their stand trying to put my 4 kuai inside it. I finally gave up and waited until they weren’t looking and snuck the money in before he could get the fanny pack back.

After lunch with them I went to the zoo market where you can supposedly get good deals on clothes but I guess I didn’t buy in enough bulk because the clothes were the same price as everywhere else it seemed. I did buy an amazing engrish shirt though. This is what is written on it:

Always buy the branded

LEE

Compleye Une of Western Qarments For The Whore Family

I thought it was hilarious and was literally crying I was laughing so hard as I was bargaining for it. I think I paid too much because he could tell I really liked it but it was worth it for that shirt. Friday night was low key as we had to get up early for Mongolia the next day.

On Saturday I woke up at 4:30 to get ready to catch the bus at 5:30am from the school’s east gate. The bus ride was long and mostly uneventful. We had chinese guides who tried to explain things to us but we didn’t understand so one of the native speakers in our program on the trip translated for them. It was pretty funny because the tour guide was saying ridiculous things such as that human life originated in Mongolia and that Mongolia has a lake that has enough water to support 60 Billion people for 100 years. They also tried to sell us on some very expensive lamb for half an hour. Our translator gave up on translating what he was saying about the lamb and just said “he is still talking about the lamb. if anyone wants it get it but it’s too expensive”. No one ended up buying lamb. It was exciting when we got to Mongolia because in the area near Beijing the signs on the road were in Chinese and English but once we got to Inner Mongolia the signs switched to Chinese and Mongolian. Mongolian looks a lot like arabic except it is written downwards. It looks pretty hard to read. In Mongolia everything is written in both Chinese and Mongolian so that was cool to see a new language written. I tried to learn some Mongolian words but the guides didn’t seem to understand when I asked.

Once we got there we settled into out Yurts. We were at a tourist compound where they have permanent yurts with a canvas top but concrete bottoms. There was also a dining hall and laundry room which had the only running water on site. The bathroom was the worst I have seen in China. When we got off the bus they had people dressed in traditional Mongolian dress greeting us with Mongolian Alcohol which I believe is derived from horse milk. After we got settled in we had lunch and then went horseback riding. it took us a while to get settled because like everything in China we had to bargain down the price. originally they tried to sell it to us got 70 kuai an hour but we got them down to 50. When I first got on the horse it was slightly scary because they just stick you on a horse and give you no instructions on how to control it. They also have mongolian guides riding amongst you and when they think your hose isn’t going fast enough they give it a whip and it takes off. It was pretty scary when the whip people came near your horse because I was not very comfortable riding in the first place. I ended up asking one of them if it we could go slowly and he said it was ok. Everyone else in the group was happy with that as well. I think it was my best usage of chinese to date.

After riding for an hour we ended up at this way station they have set up for the tourist caravans. We got off and for 20 kuai could take pictures in traditional Mongolian costumes and hold baby goats so of course I did it. I got some pretty funny pictures I will post soon. I know I always say that but tonight I don’t have time to post. I will post pictures tomorrow after tutoring. After the pictures I took some pictures with some camels they had there and then went in for free milk tea and samples of dairy products. Mongolia is really big on dairy products so they had a lot of different cheeses and milk tablets. They also have a lot of leather products and things made from horns. After the touristy shop we headed back to our compound. On the way back they made our horses run most of the way but by then I was used to it so it was pretty fun. I am still sore from that though. Walking to class is not fun at all. After we got back they had the local guides race their horses and then we watched mongolian wrestling. They asked for volunteers and I agreed so I wrestled someone else from the program. Unfortunately they won. One of the people from my program is on the wrestling team at UCSD so he wrestled with all the Mongolians and beat them all. It was a proud day for America . After wrestling we had dinner and then hung out before the second worst musical performance I have ever seen. The worst being the one during dinner, which was the exact same food as lunch. Before the show I took a walk with some other people from the program. The Mongolian grassland was really beautiful. I also hadn’t seen the sky that clear in a very long time. The show at night was the same people from dinner but this time they had a  slightly better sound system (the one at dinner had tons of echo and was way too loud). I ended up getting bored and ditched with some people and we went to the neighboring compounds. The area we were in was really touristy and there were three different compounds of yurts. The one next to ours had a lot of stuff so we went there and bought some milk alcohol and skewers. The milk alcohol was pretty nasty and we all made the assumption that it was derived from cows milk. However, I was reading the bottle and it was actually horse milk alcohol so I can now say that I have had alcohol derived from horse milk.

After finishing the horse milk alcohol we went around the compound some more and ended up in some small stores. I bought a few souvenirs and then headed back to my compound. On the way back we saw a fireworks show that was VERY close. Clearly they don’t have very strict safety standards because this show was much closer than the ones in the U.S. After we got back to the tent we ended up talking for a while before going to bed. We learned from that night that you shouldn’t gossip in a canvas building when a little tipsy because apparently we were yelling and the people in the yurt next to us could hear us clearly. They were quoting our conversation the next morning.

The next morning we had a breakfast of rice porridge, mystery meat soup (we called it that because it was random parts of a cow in it, most of which we couldn’t identify) and friend dough. We ate a lot of fried dough and porridge. We packed our stuff on the bus after breakfast and as we were waiting to leave I was talking to the local Mongolian guide from our bus and he was a really strange man. He kept on grabbing my arm and stroking my arm hair and telling me how wonderful it was. Apparently he also did that to at least two other white people and kept on complimenting another whiter person on his beard. After breakfast we headed to a factory to see where they make souvenirs and then were funneled through the gift shop there to look at their incredibly overpriced items. I bought a back scratcher made of a cow’s horn for 15 kuai the previous night but at the factory store they were selling it for 50 and there was no bargaining. I didn’t buy anything from there. After the factory we went on the 9 hour bus ride home. The bus ride back was also uneventful. I slept and then played bus games like Mafia.

Today I had my last calligraphy class which was kind of sad. I thought I had one more next week but I guess I don’t. I had the teacher write my name in a really cool cursive style that is really fast to write. I am going to save it and take it home with me. I am thinking about getting a calligraphy set here but I don’t really think I would ever use it at home. After calligraphy class I went to 金五星 （Golden 5 Star Market) to buy some more souvenirs. It was a very successful shopping day and I got some good presents as well as things for myself. I completed my 喜羊羊 (Xiyangyang, the tv show I like) collection today as well as I bought the last stuffed animal character from the show. I have all 7 main characters now and then I bought two more to be presents for my teachers. I also bought some engrish signs from a booth sold signs for hotels and things. One sigh says: “Look out! Electricity” and the other says “Look Out! Headbang!”

After shopping I dropped my stuff off in my room and then loaded a selection of pictures from my travels onto my flash drive and took it with me to show my street vendor friends. They all really liked them and I stayed there for a few hours talking with them. I am off to bed so I will be posting the pictures tomorrow.

晚安! （Good Night!)

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