- It’s a city of about 1 million people.
- The pollution is overwhelming.
- People smoke everywhere. In the notaries office today a group of men were smoking in the waiting area and Nadia said, ‘Oh no Mom, they are smoking!!’ I was glad they couldn’t understand her. (I know that smoking is way more common in the rest of the world compared to America)
- Only in China do you see street sweepers and shoe polishers that look like super models. It’s amazing.
- It looks like life here could be very hard. Squeaking out a living with your hands. Most of the people look very weathered.
- There is a distinct middle and upper class though.
- It’s COLD, COLD, COLD. The wind sometimes makes it blistering to be outside.
- It’s on the edge of a desert so we are thirsty all the time. It’s like going to Vegas and you can’t get enough liquid in your system.
- No English!
- The Western restaurant in the hotel is not western.
- The people like to drink everything hot. So in the morning the buffet has HOT milk, all the juices are hot (including the orange juice which is just weird), hot water always boiling and the yogurt just sits out warm on the counter. And forget trying to get a soda for breakfast. We finally started bringing our drinks down with us.
- We really freak people out here. It’s different than our last 2 trips. People are just not accustomed to Westerners.
- Crossing the street here seems way more dangerous than on our other trips which I thought were as scary as it could get.
- We saw the “Yinchuan Catholic Church” and it looked like it could hold about 7 people.
- The dust masks here are like a fashion statement. They are decorated every way you could imagine.
- Today we found out why. Our guide Tony said that in the spring when the sandstorms come almost everyone has to wear a mask all the time and the sky is yellow not blue from all the dust.
- That is also why it’s called the Yellow River.
- We haven’t seen the outskirts of the city so I can’t really speak to that.