Inner Mongolia

I have to admit that when I saw the Cadence's referral with "Inner Mongolia" written on it I was pretty excited. It sounded so exotic! I don't know how much of it we will actually get to experience, but in addition to being excited about traveling to China I am pretty stoked about going to Inner Mongolia too!

I do know that not many children are adopted from there through our agency. Our agency was started in 1994 and has helped process the adoption of over 8800 children from China. Approximately 24 of them have come from Inner Mongolia (IM)! Most of the provinces in China have over 100 children adopted through CCAI and some have over 1000 - so obviously this is a small amount for a region! One thing this means is that it's highly unlikely that we will have other families that we travel with when we pick up Cadence. We may travel with others for part of the trip, but not for the 5 days or so that we are in IM.

So a few tidbits for you... Hohhot City is the capital (and also where Cadence lives). The population of IM is about 23 million. They have short, warm summers and long, cold winters with many blizzards (all the more reason I want to get there SOON!). IM is renowned for its beautiful grasslands. Baotou, another large city in IM, is the hometown of Genghis Khan. It also houses the only intact Buddhist Monastery in IM. In Hohhot City there is the Dazhao Temple. Built in 1580 it houses the Silver Buddha - an eight foot tall statue of Sakyamuni Buddha that was blessed by the 3rd Dalai Lama in 1586. The Temple of Five Pagodas is also located in Hohhot. This temple has 1500 carved Buddha figures. While we won't be doing a ton of sight seeing while we're in IM I would love to see both of these places! I've read that there is a large Hui Muslim population in Hohhot. Apparently restaurants marked with yellow or green signs are Halal and it's considered a grave insult to ask for pork. Dually noted!