Inner Mongolia and more

The kids and I ended the mainland China portion of our trip with a visit to Inner Mongolia. Highlights included camel riding in the desert, with a night in a yurt in the Mongolian grasslands. Ana and Sam have become much more comfortable communicating in Mandarin thanks to the absence of English speakers. Ana found the marketplace an excellent training ground to hone both her Putonghua (Mandarin) and negotiating skills. On the other hand, I offered our group a good laugh when I instructed our taxi driver to "make a left at the 3rd noodle"...