Inner Mongolia: Day 1

Mongolia, Mongolia, Mongolia. It was super fun, but definitely not what we were expecting! We arrived aroung 7:30am, after an overnight train from Beijing (on the lovely hard sleepers). The first day we drove out to the grasslands. It's so insane, you're literally in the middle of nowhere surrounded by miles and miles of grass. Oh, forgot to mention, our tour guide only spoke Mandarin! Not only that, but he speaks at a thousand miles an hour! We pretty much figured out that staring and occasionally nodding we the best thing to do. If not he would repeat a word again and again, we were like "we know what you're saying, but we don't know what it means, and repeating it isn't going to make it magically pop into our head.'

Katie in the van:

After the two hour drive, we arrived in the grasslands. The van pulled up and these girls in traditional Mongolian dress came out singing and clapping. They gave us a little cup of alcohol (at 9:30am), we didn't know what to do so took a straight shot of it. Oooops. Turns out we were supposed to bless ourselves by putting our finger in it then wiping out head, then taking a sip of the alcohol. I would love to know what they thought of us. P.s. Mongolian blessing alcohol is gross. 

Horses in the grasslands:

Anyway this guy gives us this whole talk, we don't understand, but somehow we end up signing up for a 2 hour horse ride trip. Everyone was staring at us because we were the only foreigners on the trip. My butt was killing me! They made the horses all trot and it was so painful! I have bruises on my inner thighs. We were the only foreigners so of course everyone took pictures of us and with us.

Rachel and I on our horses:

On my horse:

Photos with other tourists!

 So then we had this lunch, where they roasted two lambs and had a special ceremony- with more of the gross alcohol! Two guys joined our group (before it was only us four and this grumpy lady). One of them literally had 7 long black wiry hairs growing out of his neck, pretty gross! He also payed a Mongolian man to sing a Chinese song to us... it was nice of him?

The lamb shredding ceremony:

After that we had free time until dinner. Well there's not a lot to do in the grasslands. We walked to the top of a hill and sat there for a while, then went to our yurt and napped for a while until dinner. Dinner was pretty much the same food - I survived on rice and peanut butter. Two new people joined our group. The three guys were all drinking baijiu. It was quite frustrating because they talked about us and thought we couldn't understand, they were like 'haha they don't understand.' Oh and yes, there was more of the gross alcohol- this time we got a scarf with it though!

Katie and Rachel on the top of the hill:

I swear I learnt this in Flowers class- Crocus...?

Wooo Mongolia!

Napping in the Yurt:

Our Yurt:

After dinner there was a performance with dancing and singing. I loved seeing the different styles of dance and how different the music is! We then we went back to the yurt where I piled on tons of clothes. It was freezing at night! I wore three shirts, a sweater, my winter coat, sweatpants, Katie's winter socks, Marco's winter hat, earmuffs, and gloves. It was still cold!

The performance:

Rachel and I ready for bed: