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:

Still No Photos...

Sorry for the lack of photos again; I've been really busy with my interviewing (believe it or not, that's the real reason I came here and it's sort of a parallel life that I haven't been blogging about-- I'm saving that writing for my dissertation!) and just haven't had a chance to get to a computer store to buy a new jump drive.

A quirky story related to my data collection, though: yesterday I was sitting in a classroom at the National University of Mongolia, interviewing a student. About 3/4 of the way through the interview, water started POURING out of the ceiling. Not just dripping, I'm talking about the equivalent of a rainstorm. It was crazy. I finished the interview and then moved to another room while the plumbers who'd been working upstairs found the broken pipe, stopped the leak, removed some ceiling tiles and cleaned up the gallons of water on the floor of the classroom. I guess this gives some indication of what the faculty and staff at the university are up against- the maintenance and repairs of the university buildings is a daunting task.

More photos by the weekend, I promise!

Forgetting One's Jump Drive at an Internet Cafe is a Bad Thing

Well, no photos with this post because I accidentally left my jump drive at an Ulaanbaatar Internet Cafe yesterday, and of course when I returned a couple of hours later it was nowhere to be found...

The good news is that I can get one at the Ikh Delguur (literally, Big Store) here, so I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

In the interim-- it's gotten really, really cold here over the last few days (perhaps dropping into the single digits at night) so I've managed to catch a head cold. For all you Buffalonians reading this, rest assured that there are places in the world much colder than our fair city! (Why I left Buffalo during our beautiful autumn to come to a much colder place is a topic we'll leave for another day's blog!)

After I rectify my jump drive situation I promise I'll write a long update--- including our adventures in the far countryside this weekend, a trip to another museum, and, of course, some crafty items. For all the craft-oriented readers of this blog: I found a source for camel yarn yesterday, and I managed to get a small skein of green cashmere! More details to follow.

Chasing Camels in the Snow

This weekend has been full of fun activities- so much so, in fact, that I don't have time to post about them all! But here are some photos that show the highlights. We went to Amarbaysagalant Khiid (monastery) on Friday on our way to Erdenet. It's only a 3 hour off-roading adventurous detour! Below are some photos, including one of Zorigoo and his wife, Alta, who have been such incredibly gracious hosts. On our way back from the monastery, we stopped and took some photos with camels that were grazing on the side of the road. It started snowing on the way... hence the title of this post.

Tomorrow I'll post about our time in the countryside yesterday- we spent a full day at a nomad's ger. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately one of the cars broke down while we were out in the middle of nowhere. We got back okay because we had two cars but today Zorigoo is trying to find a new starter. Not an easy task in the middle of Mongolia!

Off to Erdenet

We're off to my Mongolian hometown of Erdenet (where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1996-1998) for the weekend, so I won't be posting for a couple of days. I'm really excited to go back and see old friends. It should be a fun time. We're going to stop at Mongolia's largest monastery (Amarbaysagalant) on the way, so I'm sure I'll get some great photos over the weekend.

Today's adventures included a trip to the black market, where I purchased a pair of handcrafted felt slippers and John got his del. I'll post photos eventually!

Have a great weekend, everyone, and we'll let you know about our trip on Monday.

Wrestling and Dancing in Mongolia

The first of today's photos is from a great wrestling match we attended at the Wrestling Palace in Ulaanbaatar. In Mongolian wrestling, the object of a match is to get your opponent to touch his back, knee or elbow to the ground. There are no weight classes or time limits in a match. Each wrestler must wrestle once per round, the winners moving on to the next round. Thanks to Zorigo, we got front-row seats to the match today! It was really incredible. John got some amazing footage, which I'll eventually post here too.

Below are two pictures from a traditional tsam dance (according to mongolart.mn, it is "a significant religious ritual which reflects Buddhist teachings through images. It is a theatrical art performed by skilled dancers wearing magnificently ornamented costumes, which represent characters of different holy figures and devils, animals, and people"). We saw a performance which included Tsam dancing, traditional Mongolian folk dancing, throat singing, folk singing, music and contortionists today. The photos below show how colorful the costumes were.

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.