May 28--Hohhot, Inner Mongolia/Tea Ceremony, some street scenes and a Traditional Mongolian meal and show

**** note to those traveling to China anytimte soon....

June 5, 2015 (Ok the internet in China is driving me completely bonkers.  Everyone using VPN's here is having problems.  It doesn't matter which one we use, we get cut off at random times.  This makes blogging virtually impossible. Facebook is ocassionally ok.  I like adding picutres to the blog, but everytime I do it blinks out for a second or two and then the whole thing crashes.  So I will likely have to finish most of the past week when we get home.  I also accidentally posted this attempt before it was finished.  So suffice it to say, I"m hoping to catch up.  If my memory holds.  =) and jet lag does not take over.)

on to the post now that we are home:

We stayed at the ShangriLa Hotel in Hohhot. Very nice and I love the location in the middle of city life.  

Totally up our alley. 

Each morning we experienced a wide variety of foods from the local area on the buffet.   I just loved the cauldron of Milk Tea.  I have to say it takes some getting used to because it almost has a salty taste to it.  I added sugar of course.  My favorite was to add toasted millet sprinkeld on top. Some of the other add ins were not so appealing.

This lady cracked up as I tried taking her picture ladeling the tea.

the add ins

other dishes on the "breakfast" menu

Our guide Sandra took me and the kids on a little adventure during the day through the streets of Hohhot and into a traditional Chinese Tea House.  Here are some sights along the way.

Emma was a real trooper throughout the day, but took a helping hand from Lucas on occasion.  The kids were beginning to interact more each day.

Sandra explains the tea menu to Fei Fei.

Here is our tea server who taught us the proper way to drink tea.

Lucas smells the tea first before sipping.  And we found out it is traditional to use these small cups because you should be able to drink the whole cup in 3 sips because the symbol for "tea" in Chinese has 3 strokes.  So it is good luck to you to drink each cup in 3's.

Even Lilli tried the tea--even though she is not much of a tea drinker.

a few pictures of the rest of the tea shop.

This is traditional Chinese Pu er Tea.  or "PURE" tea.

Afterward we went for a very inexpensive lunch at a food court type restaurant.  The item on the top line of the menu was one of our favorites that we had multiple times while we were there.  It was a finely sliced potatoe thing almost like hash browns except not fried hard.  And a bit spicy.  Fei Fei ordered it this day so I shot a picture of the menu.  If anyone knows what this is in English I'd love to know.  So yummy.

Lucas ate that entire bowl of Egg Drop Soup by himself.  By the way Egg Drop soup in China is a lot different than it is here.  There it is more watery and often has tomatoes and other vegetables floating in it.

On our last night in Hohhot, we went out to dinner at a traditional Mongolian dinner and entertainment restaurant with our new friends the Colemans, whom I met on a facebook group for adoptive families from IM.  We really enjoyed spending time with them.  Fortunately they had a long list of menu items a friend gave them so we knew what we were ordering.  

As you can see Mongolian food is heavy on the meat and even potatoes.  Much different than Cantonese style foods. Mutton was very common.

Here is some of the entertainment.  VERY loud dare I say "screaming" voices and loud whiny "violin" type instruments.  Fun to see.  But, we didn't stay for the whole thing.  =)

 Some beautiful dancers

This guy was a hoot.  Check out the mustache.

 By the end of this day, Emma was pretty exhausted and had her head on the table.  It was a long day of walking for her.  Fei Fei keeps up but he also struggles sometimes.  Whatever the surgery was that they did last Fall, it froze his ankle in a 90 degree position.  He can't bend that ankle at all and he also has an oversized Plastic brace on it.  I can't wait to have them looked at here.

just me. taken by one of the kids.

and another day is done.