6
Location: Baotou
This morning, we met in the lobby at 7:30 am. During the morning, we visited a sand gorge in the seventh largest desert in China spanning nearly 400km (250 miles) in length. We saw camels (some of us even rode them!), climbed up to a Mongolian Buddhist monument, proceeded to slide down the side of a dune, and then visited the tomb of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan’s empire spanned at one point 3.5x the size of modern China (2x the size of Russia) and was incredibly male-dominated. We thought it was interesting that Mongolian and Chinese culture still retained a lot of their male-oriented culture, something that we are not used to. On our way back, we had some deep conversations about this, and it was very interesting to learn. We then went to a fast-food restaurant to eat something quick before bed. We will be headed back to service tomorrow morning so it’s time for bed now! Good night!