“There’s no better way to get a feel for a city than by walking it. One of my biggest gripes when traveling America is all the nooks I miss while driving.” – Old Sean
First Into the Grasslands
After my time spent in Alaska followed by brief visits to Seattle and Beijing, I wandered towards my new home in Hohhot, China.
Hohhot isn’t an especially well-known city, even within Asia.
Hohhot is the capital city of China’s Inner Mongolia province, a large swath of land geographically reminiscent of a lush, fertile Mongolia with wide expanses bisected by gentle, crisp mountains. The city itself is dominated by Chinese influence, but Mongolian lettering appears on virtually every sign and many of the local specialty dishes are distinct Mongolian with a Chinese spin.
I initially entered Hohhot to take on a new job as a Director of Studies for an elementary school.
Exploring the Flatlands
I spent my first week in Hohhot walking an extrodinary amount.
I hadn’t set up my online payment system yet, so using Alipay or Wechat to scoot around with the taxi system was more tedious than I cared to attempt regularly.
Luckily for me, Hohhot is about as hilly as a washboard, so walking around isn’t a workout. The city is perched between four tame rivers, “the Donghe River, the Zhadagai River, the Wusutu Reservoir drainage stream, and the powerful Dahei River” to the south.
Hohhot in the mild seasons is a fine gem.
The entire city is decentralized, spreading things out a lot but preventing major traffic, pollution and congestion so common in Asian cities. This is doubly appreciated, as Hohhot is patterned with enormous green zones and parks, especially the south-eastern portion of the city. Excellent parks include Chilechuan Park, the 2nd Ring Green Belt, Chundu Park, Manduhai Park and Qingcheng Park, to name a few.
These parks are usually graced with large water features rippled by the slight wind of the city. Shade is plentiful by either the numerous trees that cover the land or the tall, often solitary apartment blocks that make mini-communities.
I’m told that Hohhot is most beautiful during its short spring and shorter autumn, which I’m very much looking forward to. Supposedly, the winters are long, dry and harsh, so I’ve brought a fair amount of winter gear.
Living in Hohhot
Hohhot has a fairly accommodating tourist infrastructure in place, as it’s known to host the staging grounds of the wildly famous Nadaam Festival, a celebration of manliness and equestrian strength from the Mongolian side of the boarder.
Though I missed the festival itself this year, I did attend a Mongolian Horseman Performance (which was fabulous) to watch horseback archery, young man sweeping colored ribbons off the ground at full gallop and more traditional Chinese acrobatics. The event takes place to the north of the city near the Blue Mountains known as “An Ode to a Thousand Years,” in Chinese.
The center of the city is much busier with a more intense series of crowds milling about on bicycles and electric bikes. Here, one can find the Inner Mongolian Library, streets trailing the Zhadagai River and, most impressively, Saishang Old Street.
Saishang Old Street is a cleverly-construed Chinese tourist trap filled with snacks, trinkets and wooden signs edging off from stone-styled buildings. Despite my long-standing aversion to tourist traps, I still enjoyed checking out this area.
Understand that Saishang Old Street is a tourist trap designed specifically for Chinese tourists, rather than general tourists. This feature alone creates an impressive state, as the candy is tailored for Chinese people, the food is traditional and the setup is skewed toward authentic.
It’s rather like visiting Mount Rushmore in the US, built by colonial –descended Americans, for colonial-descended Americans. Likewise, Saishang Old Street is a flood of Chinese and Mongolian hybrid influence designed for an Asian audience.
Temple Walks
Also impressive (though expensive at 50 yuan for entrance) is the brightly colored DaZhao Temple. This is a piece of ancient Chinese architecture, well-preserved and accented with Mongolian influences on prayer-rag pagodas and slight stylistic changes.
Something that travelers should expect in this life is an utter exhaustion when regarding religious icons in a region.
During my time in Europe, I couldn’t stomach the sight of another Cathedral, no matter how glorious. I would go out of my way in SE Asia to avoid giant Buddha statues, regardless if they were seated, standing, laying, bronze, gold, steel, silver or copper. And in China, I’ve rapidly grown weary of Temple visitations.
It’s not they aren’t nice, and the historical aspects of all this stuff is wonderful. I just confess to a diminishing return.
Easy Attractions in Hohhot
Anyway, I digress. When I wasn’t at work, I continued checking out these interesting little locations.
Also, to the north of my hotel is the Inner Mongolia Museum, the Inner Mongolia Museum of Art and the Inner Mongolian Museum of Science, all conveniently grouped together with an in-house movie theater sitting next door.
Wildflowers, painstaking transplanted, are placed here, nearly scarring eyes with the blast of unexpected colors.
And that’s about it.
There are many other things I’m striving to check out as soon as possible, including the grasslands outside the city, the Daqingshan Wild Animal Zoo, the Blue Mountains themselves and many others. But for now, I’ve crammed everything into a week that I possibly could. And tomorrow my day will be dominated by moving into a new apartment.
So until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written August 11th 2019
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Ten years ago, I abandoned my military surplus store backpack for a Farpoint 40 Osprey Travel Pack. I’ve never replaced my bag since. The backpack has been with me around the world, through my departing Beijing and onwards through trips across Europe and South America. I have nothing but praise for Osprey Products.
