Saturday, July 05, 2008

Sheep Skin Rafts

In a recent bit of desert-themed traveling with Nissa, we visited Shapotou, a place that could only be described as a "desert theme park" outside of the small city of Zhongwei, Ningxia province. Shapotou is an area of natural beauty where the desert meets the Yellow River, and naturally has been turned into a ticketed tourist attraction outfitted with a zip line, camel and horse riding, sand dune sledding, dune buggies, a ski lift, and sheep skin rafting. We opted for the sheep skin rafting, which is just as bizarre as the name implies:




So for 80 yuan (around $11) each we had a river-rafting experience that would probably give PETA a heart attack. We enjoyed it, but I have to say the little inflated arms were a bit creepy.


Your days are numbered, sheep...

8 comments:

Johannes said...

Hi There. I laughed so hard about that card in Pizza Hut... I've heard of the appalling English they use and I'm sure more of it is going to surface during the Olympics.

Your story about divorce was also very interesting.

Thank you for bringing me your personal perspective on China.

Johannes

Matthew said...

The inflated sheep skins are a little creepy. But the experience would be worthwhile just to give that heart attack to PETA.

Colleen said...

Hi,
I just came across your blog and I am so excited about finding it. My daughter is from China and is from the ZhangYe SWI. There are not too many adoptions from this area. I look forward to reading through your blog and can not wait to see all the photos!

Happy Autumn Moon Festival!

Anonymous said...

Aiya, the sheep skin boat looks a bit scary...

Dan said...

Colleen,

Glad you enjoy the blog. That is certainly the first adoption I have heard of from the the Zhangye area. I am back in America now (need to write a few final entries when I get around to it) but I really enjoyed my time there, the people were great and it's a nice area of China to live. If you ever want to know more about the area feel free to ask. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you as well.

Anonymous said...

Nice post.Thanks.

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