Statue of Genghis Kahn
七月是我在中国的最后一个月，趁离开中国之前，我有机会在内蒙古跟一些朋友们去旅游了一趟。内蒙古是一个很大的自治区，而且因为人口比较少，交通系统不是特别发达，我的朋友们只有周末有空，因此我们只能去呼和浩特附近的一些地方。我们去的地方是鄂尔多斯市，那边最有名的景区是成吉思汗陵。成吉思汗陵很有意思，是一个去谒陵成吉思汗的地方，而且那边有些元代的东西。
当天晚上我们去了东胜区的一家烧烤店，那个饭馆的烧烤是我人生中吃到的最好吃的烧烤，尤其是他们那边的羊肉串儿。我们吃完晚饭以后去了一个很潮的小酒吧。这个酒吧的老板们都是嘻哈人，他们的风格跟美国的嘻哈文化很类似，我感觉在这么偏僻的地方能找到嘻哈文化是件很酷的事情。
第二天我们在回呼和浩特之前，去了一个地方叫响沙湾。响沙湾是个沙漠休闲景区。响沙湾景区很好玩儿，在那里可以体验到美丽广阔的沙漠。响沙湾也有很多不同的活动可以参加，比如说，骑骆驼、看民族艺术表演、坐过山车等等。内蒙古的骆驼很可爱，它们是双峰骆驼，骑这种骆驼很舒服。我们在响沙湾玩儿了一整天，直到响沙湾景区下班的时候我们才离开，然后我们回了呼和浩特。这次旅行虽然很短暂，但是我们玩儿的很好。希望未来有机会能去中国的更多地方旅游。
Camels at Xiangshawan
As August was my last month in China, I took advantage of my free time to go travelling for a few friends in Inner Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is a huge region and its population is relatively small. The transport network there isn’t particularly developed, so as we only had a weekend to travel, we could only visit some places nearby to Hohhot. We visited a city called Ordos, which is the location of the famous Genghis Khan’s Mausoleum. Genghis Khan’s Mausoleum is very interesting, it’s a primarily for paying respect to Genghis Khan, but also includes a collection of artifacts from the Yuan Dynasty.
In the evening of the first day, we went to Chinese barbecue restaurant in Ordos’s Dongsheng district. The barbecue at this restaurant was the best I’d ever had, especially the mutton kebabs. After dinner we went to a very trendy bar, owned by two rappers. The bar owners had a dress style very similar to classic American hip hop artists, I thought it was pretty cool to find hip hop culture in such a remote destination.
On the second day, before returning to Hohhot, we visited a place called Xiangshawan. Xiangshawan is a leisure resort located within a sandy desert. It was a lot of fun to experience the beauty and vastness of the desert there (despite being in a leisure resort). The resort also offered many entertainment activities, for example, camel riding, ethnic dance performance, rollercoasters etc. Inner Mongolia’s camels are very cute, they are two-humped camels which are very comfortable to ride. We stayed at Xiangshawan for a whole day, heading back to Hohhot after it closed. This trip was very short, but we had a lot of fun. I hope in the future I can return to China to do more extensive travelling.