Monday, October 1, 2007

Where We're Staying



Today’s post is about the apartment where we’re staying in Ulaanbaatar. It’s what’s called a “one room” apartment, meaning that there’s one main living/bedroom, with a kitchen and a bedroom. We’ve been really lucky with electricity since we’ve been here- on average it only goes out once a day or so. The kitchen is well stocked with our bottled water supply (a necessity since John and I both have experienced a wee bit of intestinal distress since our arrival!)

The building we’re in is in the Sansar district, which is in the eastern part of Ulaanbaatar. It’s a busy district, and the nearby street (Ikh Toiruu) has lots of shops, internet cafes, restaurants and nightclubs. One of the local hotspots is called “Oakland Disco Club” and John is sorely tempted to visit Oakland in Mongolia!

The picture above shows our “main” room. You can see me typing up this blog on my laptop, actually, while John plays photographer.



Next, a photo of the kitchen, complete with our drying laundry. Due to the almost total lack of humidity here, laundry dries in a flash.



A photo of the toilet, just in case you were wondering…



And finally, the view from our apartment. Note the interesting contrast between the very large, very new building on the right (which was actually built to house the American Consulate but is now private apartments) and the traditional Mongolian ger in the construction zone to the left.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not bad at all! - Ashish

Barbara said...

Hi Rachel,
The apt. looks nice. Tell John I think he should visit the "Oakland Disco". Dwight would have gotten a kick out of that. :)
I am really enjoying your blogs. Keep them coming!

Love,
Barbara

Barbara said...

Hi Rachel,
The apt. looks very nice and I love the view from your window-such a contrast with the ger in the middle. Who would have thought in Mongolia that there would be a disco named "Oakland"? Dwight would have loved that one! Take care and I hope your intestinal "bugs" have cleared up by now. Love, Barbara

Jules said...

It looks pleasant, not very large. It looks like it suits your needs. I hope you get to feeling better!

Yuen said...

When did you move to UB? How long will you be there? I surfed over here from the Rees' blog and am just now catching up on all kinds of things... including a check for FOM, I think... is it a check or online pmt. anyway, hope MGL is as good this time around as last.
Cheers,Yuen.

Unknown said...

wow. So lack of huminidy that laundry dries in a flash. Guess you have to splash water onto yourself 7/24. The apartment looks western style and loaded. Nice. Did you see horses? Take some horsey pictures pls if you see them. It is said that Mongolia has gorgeous horses. Lately I like to daydream of horses runing on our backyard. --yan

Unknown said...

So lack of huminidy that laundry dries in a flash. Guess you have to splash water onto yourself 7/24. The apartment looks western style and loaded. Nice. Did you see horses? Take some horsey pictures pls if you see them. It is said that Mongolia has gorgeous horses. Lately I like to daydream of horses runing on our backyard. --Yan

Anonymous said...

go to the Oakland Club and take some pics....or better yet video....i want to see John bust out his tribal funk moves in a Oakland Disco Club in Mongolia. Not many people will be able to say they did that.--