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It has been far too long since I updated this fair blog, so here goes... I actually had a pretty nice 26th birthday. (Thanks to all who emailed and commented...it's nice to feel loved!) My theory is that birthdays abroad can be reallly great or really awful. Luckily for me, thiings were actually good. I had decided to invite friends to a birthday dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Beijing. I wanted to go to a place I'd found online, but it was pretty far away and a co-worker of mine recommended a closer place. I figured it was worth a shot. I had only heard from 2 people that they were coming, so I prepared for a small crowd. Imagine my surprise when like 8 people were waiting when I got there, with a few more on their way! Very nice. To quote Linda Richman, the "Chinese Mexican Food" was neither "Chinese" nor "Mexican." Discuss. There, I feel better. Actually, it was OK. Surprisingly, the best thing there was what most "Mexican" food places destory - the salsa. Nice and spicy, with good ingredients. Mind you, not as good as my friend Angelica's, but that's a pretty high standard! I ordered Carne Asada, figuring that the Chinese couldn't screw up grilled beef, especially since they make so many good dishes that are similar. I expected to get a plate of sizzling beef and tortillas with condiments. Well, turns out that "carne asada" translates into Mandarin as "enchilada!" It was grilled meat (what part of the cow I'm stlll not sure) in a tortilla with cheese and covered with more cheese. Again, it was good but not carne asada! I was happy with my can of Dr. Pepper though! We had a nice time and talked about all kinds of random topics. The funny thing was that two of the guys I'd never met - they were friends of one of my colleagues. They were staying at the ultra-classy Grand Hyatt Beijing and brought me the box of cookies that were in their room. They were really good! The next day, we had a nice early July 4th BBQ at the embassy. It was super hot, but they had ice cream and beer, which was great. I had a hot dog and BBQ chicken and potato salad and corn on the cob...mmm!!! It was nice, and we got a half day off too. Good, because I had to pack for inner Mongolia. That night, I got myself to the Worker's Stadium parking lot where I met our tour bus for the 8 hour overnight trip to inner Mongolia. For those of you unfamiliar with Chinese geography, this is not the country "Mongolia" (i.e. "outer" Mongolia). Inner Mongolia is a Chinese province that borders the country of Mongolia. It is home to quite a few ethnic Mongolians, many of whom still live nomadically and live in yurts. The region also boasts great grasslands perfect for horseback riding, which was the primary goal of this trip. The whole tour was organized by an expat group that primarly organizes happy hours in Beijing for foreigners. I wasn't expecting a lot, especially after learning that our 900 kuai did not include a sleeper bus OR the horseback riding itself - even though that was the whole point of the trip. Still, the bus was fairly nice, except designed for short people. I stole an aisle seat since I couldn't even wedge myself into the seat itself, much less find a way to sleep in it! I did grab a few hours of shut-eye on the crazy, bumpy winding road, but it was not very refreshing. Thank God for my Ipod and my inflatable neck pillow. We got to Nei Menggu and checked into our hotel/guesthouse/flophouse. It was not the worst place I've ever stayed in China, and that is saying something. Compared to some of the other rooms I heard about, ours was pretty clean. We then all piled back onto the bus and off to a lake, where we promised swimming and boating. Hmmm... well, the lake was not very clean and very cold, plus (thankfully) the weather was cool - not like steamy Beijing. My intern and traveling buddies did pile into a boat and rowed about for a little while. It was nice to be somewhere we could see blue sky and green grass. I talked to one of our Chinese tour guides for a while and she seemed pretty impressed by my Chinese. It's coming back! Back onto the bus for lunch at the hotel. Meals at this place were OK - a lot of soup, but they served two interesting drinks. The first is one of my favorites - FeiChang KeLe (which translates directly as Extreme Cola, though they use Future Cola as their English trademark). Fei Chang is a Coke ripoff cola and tastes sweeter than Coke. I think it's funny because their commerical proudly claim that it is Zhongguo Ren Ziji de Kele (i.e. Chinese people's own cola). They can have it - I won't even drink Pepsi if I don't have to. That's how strong my Coke loyalty is. The other drink was Caoyuan Pijiu or "Grasslands Beer." Perhaps the WORST beer I've ever had -ever! It really tasted like grass, though I don't think that was the goal of the brewers! After lunch, onto the bus for our trip to the grasslands. I should point out that we weren't even in Inner Mongolia yet. Our hotel was in Hebei province near the border. We drove for another hour over the border past some nice scenery (and a tour bus accident - yikes) and finally crossed into Nei Menggu. There were horse owners waiting for us to let us pay them to ride out into the great expanse of grass and rolling hills. Yay! I haven't been on a horse for a while, but I am pretty comfortable around them. The horse I got was one of the bigger ones, but they didn't adjust the stirrups or saddle for my height, which led to some problems later on. Our guides led us out and wouldn't let us ride free until they felt we were comfortable on the horses. Mine kept me for quite a long time, I think, because she thought I was going to say when I wanted to go. Finally, we were off and my horse took off! It was great! For about an hour, I felt really good about the horse. I felt that it listened to me when I said "zhe" (go) or "yoo" (stop). That was until I found out that the horse was hungry. D'oh. We got separated from the trail and the other horses and into some nice thick grass. Yup, it was lunchtime and nothing I did could stop him from eating. Do they feed these poor animals? Again, my poorly adjusted gear made it difficult for me to show the horse that I was boss. Luckily, the surroundings were beautiful to look at, but I did worry that I was stuck there forever. Finally, a Chinese wrangler saw me and resuced me! He whipped my horse around so fast that I almost fell off! But we were off. Now, an only in China story - as my wrangler is riding his horse and directing mine as well, his CELL PHONE rings and he ANSWERS it! I love China. On the way back, after the wrangler took off and we took a break by a lake, my horse decided that he really did want to go fast. I wanted him to go slow because my behind was seriously hurting from the lack of a saddle pad and the previous 2 hours of galloping. But, the horse was in charge so off we went! Ow. Ow. Ow. The power of the horse was incredible though. It was a really neat experience to be out there. The horse owners tried to get us to "rest" for a bit, but we learned that this was a scam to make us late to return our horses and then they would force us to pay extra! Also, they didn't show us how to find our way back. Luckily, my internal compass is pretty good and after a quick detour through a pig farm, we were back. Wow, my body was totally hurting now. That's a workout! We went back to the hotel and cleaned up and then ate dinner. That night, they had a bonfire - crazy! They also shot off really cool fireworks - not in honor of the 4th - but just because our bus driver wanted to shoot some off and they can't do it in Beijing. Still, it was nice for us Yankees who missed the 4th this year. On Sunday, we had an early wakeup call and were off to another grassland area. I deferred more horseback riding due to my aching everything, but we went on a wonderful hike instead. I took some gorgeous pictures of the open blue sky, fluffy white clouds and great green expanses. On the way back, a Chinese woman harvesting wildflowers asked me for a drink of my water. I misunderstood her at first but her friend explained to me that she was thirsty. I gave her my bottle of water and she was very happy. Cute. They all enjoyed listening to this laowai ramble in Chinese. After another 4 hours on the bus, we arrived in Chengde. This city was the summer getaway for Qing Dynasty emperors and they build beautiful palaces here for their time away from Beijing. One of them was a replica of Potala Palce in Lhasa, Tibet. Supposedly they built it so that visiting Tibetan tributaries would feel comfortable there. Despite the expensive tickets (40 kuai!), it was a gorgeous complex of buildings - see the pics. I really enjoyed it, and I would love to see the real (much larger) thing in Lhasa. Finally, another 4 hours home to Beijing with a bathroom break in Jinshanling, home to part of the Great Wall. I got a few pics, but they weren't great. I hope to come back up there and hike part of it. We got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home and sat parked on the road for an hour. Ah, China. It's times like these when you remember you are still in a developing country - despite the Prada and Burberry stores in the malls. I'm sure there were many more great little stories that I am forgetting right now - hopefully they will come back and I can put them up on the blog. Meanwhile, check out my pics here. Work has been busier and things should be crazy at least at the beginning of the week. The Secretary will be in town. Fun fun fun! This weekend was slow, but I saw Batman Begins. I really liked it! Next weekend - maybe Qingdao (Tsingtao for you beer lovers). We'll see... Post a comment in response: |
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