Well, there was no black flag. But, thankfully there was this chinese girl (she is in her 20s) with us that we followed to find our tour guide. If she hadn't come with us from Beijing I am pretty sure we would have been lost.
Our tour guide only spoke Chinese and very fast Chinese. We just sat in the van and looked at him. Our faces told him we didn't understand a word he was saying so then he would try to act out what he was saying. At times we got it.
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| How they greet you |
However, the most important thing he said during out 1.5 hour van ride to the grassland, none of us understood. I knew it was something religious... he touched his forehead a few times as if he was putting ash on it. So of course I thought when we arrived there they were putting ash on our forehead. No... I was wrong.
We drove on this dirt road for about 30 minutes until we arrived in the yurt area where we were staying. We were literally in the middle of no where. Four girls greeted us with this alcohol. We all thought we were supposed to take a shot of it. I mean... it was in a little cup. When someone gives me alcohol in a little cup that usually means I am supposed to take a shot. Wrong. The chinese lady went after us and you are supposed to flick some of it behind you and wipe your forehead with it and then take a sip. It was a religious thing. I have no idea the meaning behind it and still don't.
Right when we got out of the car they took us over to where the horses were. They tried to tell us where we would be going on the horses. All I knew is that I needed to pay 120Y and I would be on a horse for two hours.
Somehow we ended up being in a big group of about 20 and we were the only white people. Of course. So they all just took pictures of us the entire time. And randomly this one guy would tell the horse to speed up. I could have killed him. It's a good thing I went to horseback riding camp in elementary school, otherwise I probably would have freaked out.
Our first stop was at this ladies house. She gave us warm goat milk and some snacks. Can't say I enjoyed the goat milk. We were there for about 30 minutes and for that entire 30 minutes everybody kept coming over and taking pictures of us. They sat us down at this couch and they all sat at tables staring at us. It was so interesting. You would have thought we were famous. The next "stop" was.. well I don't even know. They didn't even tell us what it was in Chinese. We just quickly road by it. So here's a picture....
After we headed back. Our butts were SO sore. Riding a horse for two hours is extremely painful. When we got back it was 11:30am and our tour guide told us we could rest until 12:30 when it was lunch time.
Lunch was very interesting to say the least. All was going well, we were enjoying our food (white rice I mean) and then all of the sudden music starts playing and people start chanting. They brought in two lambs. THE WHOLE LAMB! The head was tied with a piece of white cloth. Then this man and woman who had these robes on danced around the lambs and took "shots" of that alcohol. Then the lamb was served and the girls came around and gave everyone another "shot".
The lamb was okay... extremely fatty. And I didn't really enjoy the fact that I saw them cutting this dead lamb that I was about to eat.
After lunch we had more time to rest until dinner. We decided to go up to the grassland and just lay at the top of it. It was very relaxing and a nice break from the Beijing air!
When it started to get cold we went back to our yurt and read/rested till 6:30 when it was dinner. Dinner was standard. More people joined our tour group- these two guys and couple. They weren't very nice at all. They made fun of us a lot. I was NOT a fan. But it was a good way to practice our Chinese.
After dinner we watched this mongolian dance and then went to sleep. For some reason we were all exhausted. The yurt was obviously not heated. So we went to sleep in everything we brought... IT WAS FREEZING!
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