Well, not every interlude is going to include exciting or trail-blazing adventures. We headed toward Lubei in Inner Mongolia from Tongliao. Had to stop at a palace because Tong was hung over from the night before – he recuperated in the parking lot while we trudged around.
We stopped for lunch with some of Tong’s Mongol friends from school:
These guys looked happy, so we got a photo:
Picked up Tong’s father-in-law and drove to a spot in the grasslands.
Beautiful country, lovely weather. It would have been really great to just continue from there, but our companions had to return to their lives, and unfortunately, China is simply not very hospitable to the casual foreign rambler.
So, we took Tong’s father-in-law home, and posed for the usual photo:
We returned to Shenyang for a farewell dinner at Tong’s home with Ooh and his own son, shown here photo-bombing our picture with Yuan:
You’ll notice the opening in the front of his pants that proudly displays his tiny manhood. China had the “one family, one child” policy in place for a number of years, and with only one shot at a lasting legacy, Chinese families showed a marked preference for male children. They are in loving evidence everywhere, doted upon by parents, grandparents, friends and other relatives. Selective abortion of healthy female fetuses was officially outlawed about five years ago. Seems like there will be a generation or two of Chinese fellers who will have a hard time finding Chinese gals with whom to perpetuate the population…..
Spent a day in Shenyang re-grouping, as we have decided to wait to board our homeward-bound ship until the second week of October in Tianjin. The bullet train took us to Tianjin, where we spent the night in a hotel near the port in order to stow our large suitcases until our later departure. Now we can move around more freely!
Travel by bullet train in China is pretty simple once you get the hang of it, although few Westerners seem to do it, and it’s not particularly glamorous:
The hotel in Tianjin is Chinese, but aspires to certain Western standards, including the presence of a “cocktail lounge” in the lobby. We bellied up to the bar and ordered a Singapore Sling (for Henry) and a Salty Dog (for Robbie) from the proffered menu. Clearly, the two young ladies there had never prepared an alcoholic beverage in their lives – they pulled out a three-ring binder to consult, made several frantic cell phone calls, and collapsed in nervous laughter more than once. Henry was informed they could not make a Singapore sling, so changed it to a Cosmopolitan, finally ending up with a B-52 (of sorts). Robbie’s Salty Dog was a capful of off-brand vodka and 4 capfuls of grapefruit juice, shaken in a shaker and sprinkled with a paper packet of salt, no ice. A pathetic endeavor, but they had enough moxie to ask us for written recommendations when all was said and done (and we were still pretty thirsty!)
From Tianjin, we venture southwest to Xi’an, our first venture into the China as known to many Western tourists.
Emerald Isle to the Norse Lands 