bus subway overnight train van terra cotta warriors van airplane shuttlebus bus hostel van truck camel sandtoboggan truck van yurt horse van airplane van dorms

Where to even begin. It was every bit as amazing as I expected it to be, if not more.

I’ve learned to just be so much more appreciative of everything and open to everything and live in the moment and it’s just been so perspective-broadening gyaaaaaah I just love life so much.

Also I could not have asked for a better group to travel with. We make such a family.

Those situations that could have been easily suck-ish…it was just impossible to forget who I was with and where we were and how great all of it really was.
Everyone just so excited to be there and all those WOAH CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING moments.

There were the actually scenically location dependent incredible things, like the history of the terra cotta warriors and the fact that we were in Inner Mongolia and RIDING CAMELS IN THE FRICKEN GOBI DESERT and looking out and seeing nothing but sand in all directions and hiking up sand dunes (HOLYSHIT LIKE THAT’S ON MY FUCKING BUCKETLIST AND JUST 2 WEEKS AGO I HAD NO FORSEEABLE WAY OF MAKING SURE THAT CAME TRUE) and then staying in a yurt in the grasslands and dancing to Mongolian music around the dinky bonfire acting totally drunk and having a great time laughing like mad at the absurdity all while in all relativity completely sober and then seeing the most amazing starscape and looking up at the milky way and just thinking back to that conversation about significant insignificance and then seeing the sunrise over the steppe and riding horses through the grasslands seeing nothing but grass and sky in all directions and oh man crazy stuff. And there were the people moments, like sitting around after dinner in Hohhot totally happy and excited but also content and at peace and packing rice into a plastic bag to take back and eat with nutella and being wheeled through the airport on a luggage cart while playing ukulele and sitting at the cafe charging 30 yen and milking it for all it was worth pretending not to understand their Chinese because we wouldn’t pay and the laughter over the fan of fun game and learning Mongolian songs from Linda in the van and eating watermelon in the train aisle and Kyle getting shit confiscated at every checkpoint and laughing at the absurdity of the yurt party that we were in and dance partying on the train and Gordy fist pumping with that van outside the grocery store in Hohhot and yurtburb jokes and the pterodactyl noises.

I can’t believe that was all over the span of 4 days. And whats even more insane is that I met all these people 2 weeks ago. There’s no putting it all in words, but here’s shot #1.