Thursday, October 11, 2007

Photos Galore!


Finally, some photos of our recent adventures... unfortunately I still don't have any pictures from our super-fun sojourn to the countryside last weekend, as those are stuck on my laptop until I get a new jump drive. But I'm using my camera card reader (thanks, Adam) to transfer some pictures that are currently on my camera.

The photo above is of me and John at the new Chinggis Khan statue in Ulaanbaatar (for those of you who are wondering about its specific whereabouts, it's located at the Parliament building facing Sukhbaatar Square. It was unveiled for the 800th Anniversary of Chinggis Khan last year [the airport was also renamed Chinggis Khan airport in honor of the anniversary]).

The three photos below were taken at the International Buddha Park (created in 2006, located at the base of Zaisan). The Buddha is very big (I have no idea how many meters tall it is, it's just really huge). The second photo is of John banging on a ceremonial drum there. Note the Mongolian language grafitti on it. And finally, the third photo is of some Mongolian pre-K students who were playing a game around the base of the Buddha statue.





Here's a picture of a young monk (or lam) at the top of Zaisan (a memorial located on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar which honors Russian soldiers killed in WWII):




Finally, a photo of a Toyota Prius Hybrid that I flagged down as a taxi this morning! With the massive amounts of traffic here in Ulaanbaatar, I think hybrids are a really great idea. I'm not sure how hard they are to repair here, though:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahh, good ol' Chengis/Chinggis/Ghenghis Khan. His descendents ended up as the Mughal Dynasty in India. If I remember my history correctly, he had the largest empire, ever, in human history- larger than the british, larger than even the soviets... How old is this Lincoln-pose statue? Did it come first or did the Lincoln statue come first?

-Ashish

Anonymous said...

Never mind. I should have read the entire post before commenting! Obviously, the Lincoln statue came first... :-)

-Ashish
PS: I have a jump-to-conclusions mat that I use from time to time.
PS2: The mat reference is from "Office Space" for those who're wondering...

Jules said...

Thanks for the great pictures. The statue of Gengis Khan was great! I know that is not how you spelled it! I am sure that you spelled it right, but this is how I have already seen it spelled! It was impressive! Thanks,

Rachel said...

Jules, you're right- the English spelling is typically Genghis or Gengis Khan- I just transliterated the Mongolian. :)