Qingdao and Hohhot!

The past week was one of the better vacations of meh life.

We left for on the 2nd for Qingdao, my favorite Chinese city. About 18 hours later, at 6:30 a.m., we arrived.

We went to the hostel first, dropped off our luggage and then went exploring around the Zhanqiao Pier area. We ate dumplings in Lu Xun Park, walked through the German district, and sun-bathed at Qingdao's Number 1 Bathing Beach, which as you can see from the picture below, I desperately needed. Then, we ate an awesome lunch at Qingdao's best Indian restaurant. It was good.







After lunch, we walked around town a little more, at dinner, and met my friend Chandler Zhang (张长建) and his girlfriend at May Fourth Square to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. It was really pretty; sadly, my camera has a hard time capturing night pictures.


The next day, we went to Jimo Road shopping district and then to the Tsingdao Beer Museum (青岛啤酒博物馆f), but tickets were RMB 50 a person, and we're all cheap students, so we walked a few blocks over to Qingdao's famous culture street. After being harassed by vendors trying to sell us fake Ming Dynasty jewelry (1311 AD? for RMB 20? No thanks) by screaming "Herro foreign friend! I make dis cheap for you!" we went back to Qingdao's pristine beaches.




That night, we went out to eat with my friend Chandler, his girlfriend, my other Chinese friend Winston Zheng (郑伟海), and two people we met in the hostel earlier that day. One of the really cool things about traveling internationally is all the different people and cultures that you get to know.


Nationalities: Korean, Chinese, French



Nationalities (l-r): Dutch, Chinese, American, British, American, Chinese

After dinner, we went to karaoke. It was a lot of fun. 一杯二锅头, OOHH..


The next morning, we got up and ate a late breakfast/early lunch at the Diner. We met up with my friend Armstrong Yang (杨航), who I'm working with now to start an environmental organization at Qingdao University (he's a masters candidate there majoring in environmental diplomacy).


After that, it was off to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia!

The 24 hour train ride wasn't nearly as bad as we were expecting. The countryside in Northern China is really beautiful and we found a lot of stuff to do to pass the time.



And we're in Hohhot! The capital city of Inner Mongolia (Semi-Autonomous Region) is surprisingly developed. There was really a mishmash of different cultures, and the influence of ethnic minorities in the region was a welcome change to the urban sterility of Shanghai.



This is eating lamb kabobs at a Xinjiang Uighur restaurant near our hostel. It was delicious.


The next day, we took a tour of the grasslands about two hours outside of Hohhot. We lived in a traditional Mongolian yurt, rode horse, eat Mongolian food, drank horse milk tea, and really learned a lot about a completely different culture.


This is the yurt we stayed in. It was really cold at night (28° Fahrenheit). Brr.


The grasslands of Inner Mongolia are beautiful, but the inhabitants are facing a lot of problems as climate change takes its toll on every corner of the world. One man told me that he remembers when the grass was lush and green for the better part of the year. Recently, however, less rain and an ever-expanding Gobi Dessert have definitely affected the farmers who live in there. He pointed to a lake that had dried up as he was telling me about some government policies implemented to combat erosion and desertification. A lot of Mongolians aren't allowed to raise goats and sheep anymore, which has been their livelihood - as well as their main food source - for centuries, if not millennia. When we ate dinner that night, I checked out their house. Most of the power they use is generated by a windmill and a small solar panel attached to the roof of their house. Hot water is also solar-generated. Rural Mongolians can do this, but we can't? I think it's time for us to step it up a little bit...





Summary of the trip (for those of you who want to look at the pictures and get a quick overview):

60+ hours on trains
hostels
a lot of foreigners
fun in Qingdao
fun in Inner Mongolia

Enjoy!

Matthew