A Weekend in Bashang

On Saturday morning, students boarded the bus for a 6 hour long ride to the Bashang Plateau in Hebei Province (it is, as students know it, part of "Inner Mongolia", which is part of China, not Mongolia). Though it was raining, it was a beautiful scenic drive through the mountains.

Upon arriving in Bashang, students had some time to eat lunch and settle in at the hotel before climbing aboard the bus once more to head to a park in the grasslands. At the park, students had the opportunity to do ATV-riding, grass sledding, archery, and play a version of laser tag. Luckily, it didn't rain much while we were at the park.

We went back to the hotel, where the weekend festivities were just beginning. There were lambs roasting over a fire, a colorful tent, fireworks going off in every direction, and people lighting paper lanterns. Many of the students thought it was a Chinese holiday of sorts, but in fact, Bashang holds these kinds of festivities every weekend--a joyous getaway from city life.

After dinner, a delicious leg of lamb was prepared for the students! Using chopsticks, students ate it fresh off the grill.

Then, students were given paper lanterns to set off on their own! The first one caught on fire and broke, but the next few attempts were more successful.

The final lantern was decorated with "SSC Beijing 2013" and the students all signed their names in Chinese.

After the lanterns, there was singing and dancing around a fire under a tent! The students even got to sing karaoke, singing a couple English songs from the machine's limited selection.

The biggest hit of the night was "YMCA"!

Finally, exhausted from all the singing and dancing, the students went to bed. On Sunday morning, about half the students chose to wake up at 4:30 AM to catch the sunrise. We walked out to the edge of town, but unfortunately the sunrise was obscured by clouds. Still, it felt great to be outside in the crisp morning air, before the rest of the town woke up. The fog also lent itself to some beautiful pictures!

Then, students returned to the hotel where they had a couple more hours to sleep. After breakfast, we left to go horseback riding. Unfortunately, as it turned out to be a gorgeous day, all the horses were booked at every place we tried. We ended up going to another park by a lake, this one with carnival rides and carnival games.

Something especially striking was that you could see the moon in the sky all day! If you look closely, you can see a crescent moon in the picture below.

Then, we went back to the hotel to pack and eat lunch. Around noon, we boarded the bus back to Beijing. We arrived around 6:30 PM, and students went home with their host families to rest.