Tomb Sweeping Festival 2017
Opened my eyes to a dark blur. I physically felt the mere three hours of sleep I salvaged in the crick of my neck and stiffness of my back. I washed my face, got in a cab towards Beijingās university town äŗéå£, and made myself comfortable in the right corner of a bus seat. I pulled my shades over my eyes and fell back asleep.
Something hit me in the head. I tried opening my eyes before realizing that I still had covers over my eyes. I slid them off a wave of bright sunlight hit my face wrinkling my nose. Naina and Violet had just came back onto the bus with snacks, and before long we were heading towards å
夓, Inner Mongolia again.
Seung Min was the young lad sitting to my right. He was here in Beijing as an exchange student from South Korea. He said he was super excited to visit the various kinds of terrains here in China that were not present back home. He shook his head regretting that South Korea was small enough to travel from one end to the other in a couple of days. But Chinaā¦.now that was a different beast of a country altogether. Soon, I drifted back to sleepā¦
The next time I woke up, it was because my butt was starting to hurt from sitting. Weād left at 5 am and finally arrived at the grasslands at 2 pm.
Stepping off the squeaky bus, I felt the sun and the breeze wash my skin, immediately cleansing my spirits. The three of us huddled along in the large pack of human tourists and was ushered onto the second floor of a large banquet room. Among the several round restaurant tables, we found one with three empty spots and parked ourselves. (Hereās a sneak peak of our dinner experience that very evening. We were supposed to have an outdoors bond fire lamb roast, but ended up staying inside with a semblance of a concert performance due to āweatherā concerns. Mind you, it was quite hot so I doubt that we couldnāt have had our bond fire lamb roast due cold conditions.)
And so after lunch, we were on our way to riding horses. The grasslands didnāt seem as āgrassyā as what we envisioned, but that was probably because we were only on the edge of spring and no where near summer. The horses at this particular location were also smaller than horses Iāve encountered before, but no less magnificent. We lost Naina when we set off, but on our way back to base camp, Naina, Violet, and I were able to ride three horses that seemed to be snuggle buddies (just like us). They wouldnāt leave each othersā sides. If one got a bit too far ahead, the other two would rush to catch up to him.
As we neared basecamp, our horses sensing the end of the journey rushed forward, probably eager to for us to disembark off their backs. I jumped off my brown backed horse and looked down at my now horse hair covered legs. I smiled and turned to join Naina and Violet. Leaving behind the day, we walked past the Mongolian Yurts that were spread out in neat rows and into our grassland castle. The sun was setting now, causing the yurts to cast a deep glorious shadow across the ground that nearly reached our feet.
Ā Trip to Inner Mongolia Part 1 | 4.1.17 Tomb Sweeping Festival 2017 Opened my eyes to a dark blur. I physically felt the mere three hours of sleep I salvaged in the crick of my neck and stiffness of my back.
