After getting into Hohhot, which is in Inner Mongolia (內蒙古), around 9am and checking into our hotel, we headed to the local province museum which had a section dedicated to dinosaurs fossils discovered in Inner Mongolia, another to the spaceships shot off from the Inner Mongolia plains and a number of sections dedicated to Genghis Khan (成吉思汗). It was pretty much everything a guy could want in a museum. Well the only thing that might be better is a museum of Genghis Khan in a control room directing rocketships that are being piloted by dinosaurs, but unfortunately I do not think that exists. It was interesting to see that they never mention the actual country of Mongolia and how it was once part of China, instead it just focused on how Genghis Khan unified China and how Inner Mongolia is an important part of Chinese history. Also how amazing the Inner Mongolian people are because they abandoned their homes, moved to areas that had harsher conditions for the better of the country so they could start the space program in the plains where the Inner Mongolian people used to farm.
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| From 77 Days in China |
Outside the museum
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| From 77 Days in China |
Dinosaurs!
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| From 77 Days in China |
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| From 77 Days in China |
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| From 77 Days in China |
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| From 77 Days in China |
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| From 77 Days in China |
Mammoth!
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| From 77 Days in China |
Chinese Rockets!
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| From 77 Days in China |
A Mongolian Yurt
Old Town
After the museum we headed to the old town, but were pretty disappointed that it was very touristy and not very interesting. In addition all the temples there cost money to get in, when we had been to many larger nicer temples that did cost anything, so we decided not to go in.
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| From 77 Days in China |
Outside a temple (大召) we didn't pay to get into
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| From 77 Days in China |
Picture of the city
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| From 77 Days in China |
Donkey selling fruit
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| From 77 Days in China |
KFC in 3 languages
Dinner
After old town we decided to get dinner and found a nice restaurant that was recommended and it was very good, however pretty expensive, the bill came to more than $15, thats almost 7.50 each! I think we are going to be in for a rude awakening when we get to Beijing and Shanghai and restaurants are closer to western prices.
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| From 77 Days in China |
Lamb Dim Sum (羊肉燒賣)
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| From 77 Days in China |
Had to eat lamb leg like a Mongolian in Inner Mongolia
Exhaustion
Well it took 41 days of constant travel, but even halfway through the museum today we were exhausted, after dinner we went back to our hotel at around 7pm and passed out planning to wake up around 9pm to go out again, but this was not happening and we slept till late the next morning, so we might not get to see all of Hohhot than we wanted, but from what we have seen it is way to touristy than we want and are tired of dealing with the tour agencies to find a good tour, so it might be a good city to take a break in. Hopefully one day we will get to go to Mongolia to experience it for real
dim sum looks so damn good ,-rory
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