Traveling to Yinchuan!

This past week was National Holiday! That means we get about 1 week off to go traveling. As I mentioned before, it also means that the entire country is traveling at that time, so it can be quite interesting. This year I'm thankful that I was able to avoid most of the crowds. I went way way up north to Yinchuan. The capitol city of Ningxia. It's a small city of around 2-3 million (or so I've been told). I went there to ride on camels in the desert and to join in fellowship with fellow FoCers. Here is a short list of my experiences...

1. Five of us rode on a super crowded bus for 7 hours, got off, tried walking to the hotel to find out we went to the wrong one (there are 3 with the same name close to the train station). That's ok, we had time to walk some more. Arrived: 12pm

2. Day two started with the ten of us walking to find breakfast (not easy with such a large group!) I quickly took on the name of "mom". My job was to keep us together and moving forward. Then, on to the train for 20 hours!

This man wanted a picture with the 8 of us foreigners. I don't think many foreigners visit this city.

3. Train ride for a super long time. Lots of card games were played and hours spent eating and sleeping. Thankfully we had beds. Best train ride ever! (No lie!)

4. Arrived in Yinchuan! We went to Ashely and Anna's place were they so graciously allowed all ten of us to crash for a night. We were supposed to meet a fellow FoCer there to get the key. However... it turned out that Ashley was still there! She was able to show us around the apartment and help us get lunch. She also told us what we could do for the day. Having 10 people in one apartment was interesting, but thankfully we all found a place to sleep. I think most of us slept ok.

5. Yinchuan is so small we conquered it in one day (pictures coming, I didn't actually take any that day so I need to get some from friends).

6. Off to the camels!!!!!!!!!!! I'll have a post just on this since it was so cool it deserves it's own post!

Here is a hint of what it looked like. 30 camels in row walking through the desert... pretty cool!

Zeke (my camel) and me! I got him day one and randomly got him day 2. I kept him forever then :)

7. After the amazing camels I had a super long trip back... 21 hours on train #1 (8pm-6pm), 3 hour layover, 6 hours on train #2 (9pm-3:30am), 20 minute taxi ride, 2 hours of sleep, 4 hours of teaching, 2 hours of lunch with a friend... and finally... arriving back home for napping and relaxing! I also teach Sunday morning, so hopefully I can sleep early tonight :)

It was so nice traveling with 9 fellow Wuhaners (altogether there were 8 foreigners and 2 Chinese friends). We laughed, screamed (there was a scary movie watched), sang, coughed, ate, played, and rode camels together. So much fun :)