Day 6 of the trip and day 2 of the Inner Mongolia trip, we went to the desert 向沙湾. I used to think that the temperature at the desert will always be scorching hot, but actually it does varies between seasons. 真是井底之蛙！It was quite cooling, in fact cooler than Singapore there. Didnt even sweat there.

The tour guide mentioned that the sand is very fine in the desert. Thus we had to wear "socks" before going to the desert. It was really huge!

Thats all for day 2 in IM. haha. Distance between places of interest is very far, so most of the time we were sleeping on the bus.

Oh.. Finally have the time to blog about the 8 days trip. haha. Day 5 of the trip, we were at Inner Mongolia. There's a difference between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Just to let you all be aware of this.

After the guide picked us up from the train station, we proceed to the grasslands. The weather was good. It was not raining finally. The grassland was called 呼伦贝尔. After our lunch, we went to ride horse! I thought it will be scary at first. Afraid that I couldn't climb up the horse, afraid that I will fall, afraid that the horse won't listen to me, afraid of this and that. But when I managed to sit on it, the feeling was so great!

Mei sin and zhan wei's horses had to be tied to the guide's horse. Do you know why? lol ! Cause zw's horse is very active and tend to run away while ms's horse is very lazy, it will stop walking out of the blue. So only ah hong, ah wee and me get to experience to control our horses ourselves. My horse is wierd. It likes to follow ah hong's horse. The good thing was that I didn't have to control my horse a lot. The bad thing was.... his horse tends to walk in the different direction. Faintz! And when we were supposed to stop to get down, everybody's horses will stop except his. His horse will find grass to eat, so mine will follow too. Also, my horse will 吐白沫. As my horse always follow ah hong's horse, the white foam landed on ah hong's leg. LOL.

It was really fun riding the horse, feeling very relaxed and free. When we were riding back, the guide suddenly mentioned something then the horses started to gallop. I was like so unprepared lah. Held very tightly to the handle and me bouncing up and down on the saddle...my backside, ouch. Lucky it was only for a while. Then after a few moments later, the guide told us that he will tell the horses to gallop again. This time I was more prepared and ready! It was so fun lah! The adrenaline rush. woohoo.... Fun fun fun!

At night we stayed at the 蒙古包。It was freaking cold lah that night. The temperature in the late morning and night is very different. We were wrapped like dumpling. Gloves on, scarves on, jackets on. Whatever clothing can be found were also worn. haha.

At night, we went to see stars. OMG! I think you can see all the different constellations in that piece of sky lah. There were so many stars. More than you can imagine. Lots and lots of stars blinking at us. It was so great! The rest saw a lot of shooting stars, but I didnt really catch one. Oh... so sad.

Thats all for day 5. Tired tired now!

Some pictures taken in day 5 below:

Day 4 and the last day of the 西安trip. Sad to leave the tour guide. He was so cute! His hair is lk a nest lah, he said he had no time to cut. lol haha

Anyway, we visited 明城墙。 Nothing much to see also. At there, we were "forced" to listen to stories about 貔貅 as the people there wanted to psyco us to buy them. Initially I thought those aunties and uncles from our tour group will want to buy. I was so wrong. When the guide from the store finished introducing 貔貅, those aunites and uncles rushed to the exit. The 5 of us were the slowest to leave there. haha. So funny lah. This situation is so different when compared to Singaporean tour group. Singaporeans usually will stay at the store for a very long time to buy 貔貅. The China people are not intersted at all. So contradictory rite. haha

Cute guide explaining the history Only photo with the guide. =(

These are the 2 who always bully me. lol

The last place of visit was 明城墙. We left the tour group early as we need to take the train to Inner Mongolia. We had lunch at a restaurant nearby. Anw, we had lunch at 10.30am, before that we had buffet breakfast at our 4 start hotel. So I was super full before having lunch lah. The best dish was the fish. OMG! It was super delicious lah. Very crispy and much fewer bones. Those fish I had before had lots of bones and I won't touch them. But for this fish, I think I ate half of it and all the skin. haha. Pls note that I was super full. This shows how I longed for to eat fish, with less bones.

This was the super nice fish!

Our train to Inner Mongolia (IM) was at 12.20pm. We left at 11.30am as we were told that the taxi ride will be only 10min from the train station. So we slowly waited for the taxi. There were empty taxis, but none was stopping! It was 12pm and we started to panic. Cos the train always leave on time or even few minutes earlier. So we cannot afford to be late. We were so desparate for taxis that we took motorbike instead. It was a motorbike that had a cart for 3 passengers. When we reached the train station, I almost wanted to faint. There were so many people queueing up, or rather gathering at the entrance for the queue to have their luggage checked. It was 12.15pm. Really very stressed out. After we got our luggage checked, we rushed to the entrance gate for the train that will leave to IM. When we reached there, I wanted to faint again. There were 2 long queues to enter the checkpoint for the tickets. It was 12.20pm already. But at least the gates were not closed, which means that we still have the chance to board the train. haha. When I was at the checkpoint, the person in front of me had her ticket was confiscated. I don't really know what happen. I was so worried that mine will be confiscated also lah. Going crazy at that time liao. It was 12.30pm. Luckily, mine was returned to me after the train person clipped my ticket. After that, we ran to the train. The situation was simply crazy. I was carrying heavy bags and I was panting super heavily and sweating profusely. When I saw the train, I was so relieved! Cos if we didnt get to board this train, which is the only train to IM per day, I really don't know if we will still be able to go IM. The train left at 12.50pm. Maybe it was due to the Golden Week of China, thats why there was allowance of 30min.

We bought 硬卧. I took the middle deck. Argh! Can't sit upright. The blanket and pillow case didn't seem to be as clean as the 西安train. But at least the toilet was clean. No bombs this time and there was water from the tap. The problem for this train was that the hot water was limited and the hot water station was located at a few cabins only. So I needed to walk to few cabins down the train, sometimes without being able to get hot water. *roll my eyes*

Not bad, I survived 22h train ride. Alrighty, thats all for day4. Will update IM tour soon, I guess. haha

A statue of yang gui fei. This photo was taken by ah wei. Now you all know what he focuses on.

After that, we went to 兵马俑博物馆. The highlight of the tour. This is the main thing to see in 西安。We were super excited as we wanted to see how grand it was. Initially we were brought to exhibition halls in the museum. Saw artefacts that were kept in glass. Was quite disappointed initially, but when we went to the real site where the 兵马俑 were found, we were really impressed. Actually those 兵马俑 were coloured, in fact quite colourful. But after 5 minutes they were dugged out, the colour fade away. Thats why the digging for more 兵马俑 and tombs were paused as people are still finding ways to preserve the colour and also finding ways to neutralize the mecury underground. The amount of mecury is very high and it will kill if inhaled. So smart of 秦始皇rite. He did so much planning of his body after death. haha

Forever with his umbrella

The real site where 兵马俑 were dugged out:

At night, the tour guide brought us to a restaurant to eat all dumplings feast. There were 19 different dumplings and one dumpling soup. The dumplings were cute, cos they were shaped according to the fillings. For eg, duck meat dumpling was in the shape of a duck. Cute cute!



After the tour guide sent us to the 4 star hotel (really great hotel!), we went out again to the same place near the restaurant and went to the muslim night market. yup, eat again. haha. We tried the famous 羊肉泡馍and 凉皮。erm... we don't really like the taste. =p




It was 10 plus when we returned to the hotel. Tired tired. When mei sin and I were falling asleep at 12 plus, the hotel phone rang. Basket! The guys called to disturb us. Once they hanged up, they called again. In the end we hanged up the phone. Next moment, they were banging our door. Ai yo, so old already still play such childish stuff. tsk tsk! One thing scared them away... our undies.. haha. Cos we washed and hanged in the toilet. When they entered the toilet, they siam back to their room. Thought they already used to seeing them back in Shanghai. shrugs. Guys are wierd.

Alrighty, thats all for the moment. Shall slowly update the rest of the trip other time.

26 Sept, off to 西安！The usual gang, zw, wh, ms, tw and me. We took 17h train ride there. This time we managed to get 硬卧. Phew, at least we can sleep flat, and not 90 deg during the Huangshan train trip. I took the lowest deck, while the rest took the 2nd and upper most deck. The upper deck is so low that one cannot sit upright. haha.. phew. opps!

Thats all for now at the moment. Rushing to go out!