Sunday we flew to the northwest of China - Dunhuang; a small town of 180,000 people, an airport with just two gates and located literally in the middle of the Gobi Desert. It was SO COOL! It was also quite cold being so far north (almost into Inner Mongolia) - ~32F in the mornings, but then warming up to mid-70's by afternoon. Also given that China doesn't do any time zones (everyone is on Beijing time) the sun rose ~8am each morning and set ~8pm each night. Helps to keep the little ones sleeping later when it is freezing cold and pitch black at 7am still! We stayed at the Silk Road hotel - with a sand view room!
On the first day we went to Mingsha Hills - 25KM wide and 40KM long range of sand dunes. We boarded our camels and, after convincing Joseph that it really was okay to ride it with his Baba, we were off! The views were just breath-taking and for everyone else we were quite an attraction too as we were just about the only foreigners there! We rode up a couple of hills and 'parked' our camels to then do some bamboo sledding down the hills. Finally we took off to the Crescent Moon Spring - a small oasis at the edge of the desert. It was just like nothing we had ever seen before! For lunch we went into town for some local food - noodles and donkey meat. We all tried it...Zoe cried thinking of lovable donkey's from TV (aka Eeyore) and Abigail decided she loved donkey meat (along with all other meat!). It was quite a lunch (and we all had Snickers mid-afternoon to curb the hunger before dinner!).
Tuesday was our historical tour day - Great Wall of the Han Dynasty (built completely different with stones/sand/straw and over 1000 years before the Ming Dynasty Great Wall that everyone sees in Beijing today), Yumenguan Pass (built in 121 BC as an important point on the Silk Road - also named Jade Gate pass for the large caravans of jade leaving China to Central Asia on the ancient trading route) and the Black Gobi Desert (large rock formations in the middle of the desert that is completely covered with small black stones on top of the sand). While the sites were amazing just at how they have survived for so long and the history behind each of them, what will be most remembered is our van ride...lots of laughter in the car, traveling at 'high' speeds over the desert not on any roads, and eating peanut butter with chopsticks for lunch!
Wednesday morning we visited the Mogao Grottos - one of the three famous rock grottos in China and regarded as a storehouse of Buddhist art in the world. There were over 492 grottos each containing murals painted over 1000 years ago and colored statues. We saw the third largest Buddha in the world (over nine stories tall) - still not impressed with him but did have a great opportunity to talk to Zoe about the one true God and how Buddha is not. Thankfully our tour only visited 10 caves - although Abigail & Zoe did amazing touring each cave (I think by cave 5 Kelly & I were more bored than the little girls - sorry shallow, I know.) Joseph & Lindsey (along with Megan who has already been to the grottos) also decided to stay outside and watch all the people as the caves were a little too dark & crowded for their liking. Wednesday afternoon was our favorite time of all - we just went back to Mingsha Hills - with our backpack, some food/drinks and a frisbee and played in the sand for hours! We did splurge and have Lindsey & Megan each take an ultra-lite/paraglider trip over the desert to see the view from above - they both loved it! We climbed some hills to slide down the sides - which Zoe & Lindsey especially found most amusing. Kind of like being at the beach and the mountains at the same time - beach mountains - it was wonderful!
We did have some favorite vacation quotes (mainly from Abigail who was just on a roll during our trip!)...
Upon seeing the only option for going to the bathroom was a squatty potty, Abigail says to Kelly "One of us is going to get pee-d on, it's either you or me!"
After a tough evening of being upset, Andy says to Abigail "Remember the Bible says to not let the sun go down on your anger." Too which our very literal Abigail says "Too late."
It was a great time as a family to just relax, refresh and see new parts of China! We are glad to be back home in Shanghai with still a few days to catch up on things before work & school kick back in!
Looks like a lot of fun!
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