February has brought a lot of excitement into our lives! First of all, we celebrated 6 years of dating! We went to eat at a fancy restaurant and had some good discussions. Here is evidence of us celebrating with our good friend, whom Matt named Nergui. Names in Mongolia usually mean something (examples: ). Matt's Mongolian tutor asked him if this stuffed doll (a present from Becky and Darren?), which she called a "drunken snowman," had a name. It didn't have a name so he decided to name it Nergui, which means "no name" and is a common name in Mongolia. Apparently there is some kind of superstition here that it is bad luck to give your child the wrong name (or something like this) so some people just never get a real name.
These were taken in our living room. Notice the attractive and detailed floral wallpaper (lilies)! It's very textured as well.
Last weekend, we decided to explore Ulaanbaatar a little bit and go hiking in the mountains surrounding the city. We were going to hike with a few other expats, but everyone else had some unfortunate event that prevented them from coming (missing hiking boots, being sick, or staying up way too late the night before.) It is very important to be in tip top shape if you want to hike in the mountains in the winter! We took a bus (only cost 400 tugrug / 0.30 USD) to the northern part of the city into the ger districts. We accidentally got off a few stops too early, but we enjoyed taking time to walk through and experience the sites and sounds of the ger districts.
A group of kids sliding on a flat piece of metal:
All the families put up fences to separate their land from the next family. Matt and I were talking about how good Mongolians have it (relative to poor people in many other countries); because there is so much space and such a sparse population, and they have pretty comfy gers, it seems to us that they get to enjoy a life relatively more comfortable than a slum of a crowded city would be. Of course the cold and pollution counteract this a bit.
It ended up being a very hazy day. Usually it is very clean and sunny during the daytime here. I think this might have been a mix of cloudy and pollution?
Evidence that we were really here!
I commonly see dogs scavenging through the piles of the trash in the city, but I was surprised to see goats eating garbage in the city, but really it was more in the outer city limits. I shouldn't have been surprised because 1) goats are known to eat pretty much anything and 2) this is probably the easiest food available. There really isn't much grass to graze on in this area. There was a dog-goat faceoff as we approached this garbage pile (you can see one of the dogs retreating on the left):
Lots of grub to choose from!
Lot for sale! Should Matt buy it??
Walking up the slope to the forest.
A lot of the gers are built on a hill!
Beware of wolf?
Hobbit hole!
We made it to the forest!
mustache scarf!
We found an abandoned ger made of concrete! Maybe we will live here this summer!
Looks like it might be a hang out spot for drunks!
Going back down to the ger district. You can see the grey smog! Every house here has a totally different design, with different sizes shapes and materials. A lot of them are very unusually proportioned and have strange features.
We got pretty cold, tired, and hungry after our long hike, so we enjoyed an enormous pizza twice the size of Matt at Pizza Big!
An adventurous day!
The very last picture looks so warm! And that pizza looks very American and delicious :) Those houses are funny... where do they learn to build if they all look different? You guys look alive & well and i am glad to see it :)
ReplyDeleteNice camera work! I'm glad that you two are doing well.
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