Wholey dooley. It is HARD being in a group! Especially when you’ve all come together from different backgrounds. I mean it’s great – learning about all these different things, but it also makes it hard.
Never mind. It’s also hard being with ANY of the same people all day every day, even when they’re pretty cool.
Today was full again but NO MORE house hunting, thank goodness! (still haven’t sorted it out though) We started at the SOS clinic to learn about where we go if shit hits the fan. They’ve got an emergency room, western imported drugs/vaccinations and a dentist. It was the nicest doctors surgery I’ve ever been into. I also want to be friends with the girl that showed us around but that would have been a bit weird straight up, so I’ll wait til we run into each other somewhere else. I was particularly stringent with the quality of my form-filling-out as it’s the form they use when you’re unconscious and need to be helped. They need the approval of your health/travel insurance before they do ANYTHING even if you’re dying. Hence the need for super accuracy. I also made them photocopy the cards they need and put them in my file just in case someone has trouble reading my writing. I did forget to write down my blood type and passport number even though they didn’t ask. Oops.
Below: The government building at night ( Sukhbaatar Square); Walking to the performance; the National History museum
THEN we went to the National History Museum that was SO well run. The things in there are fantastic. And written in English (as well as Mongolian Cyrillic). I enjoyed it but my tummy was pretty rumbly by the end.
This is a photo of the statue out the front. It’s been there 10 years, to remind people that the death penalty in Mongolia still exists and that they don’t think it should.
Lunch was at another popular western style pub. It seems that western style pubs aren’t western style for the westerners that come through town. The locals love the joints! We met with the honorary Consul to Australia who was super helpful and really knowledgeable. He is a very successful lawyer who studied in Australia for a couple of years. He studied Australian business law because it’s more advanced than Mongolian law – so that he could bring the knowledge back to Mongolia and help evolve Mongolian law.
We also had lunch with a lovely lady from the Mozzies association. She was SO great! Mozzies is a large group of Australian and Mongolians living and working in Mongolia who have lived or worked in Australia. She chatted all afternoon about the difference it made to her – having studied in Australia, and the craziness of the change from a communist lifestyle to a market economy. It was so amazing to hear. (below: us at lunch today)
Post-lunch we sat in our room for an hour to match my apartment notes with Claire’s apartment photos. It was quite fruitful and we got yet another shortlist.
Post-fruitful shortlisting, we headed through the city to a SPECTACULAR display of Mongolian traditional dance, singing and contortionism.
It was colourful, well choreographed, well performed and to the point. Nothing went for too long and everyone genuinely enjoyed themselves. The throat singing was amazing as I expected (the guy was also pretty cute). The dancing was great. I never knew anything about traditional Mongolian dance. Not that I imagine it’s anything but a Mongolian tradition, but the dancing was very graceful and light footed – with ballet arms and legs. There was a bit of highland dancing feet, some amazing indo-china based movements and facial expressions and then the part that didn’t seem to be related to anything – shoulder jiggling. It was amazing. It was just like shrugging your shoulders, except very fast – and made to look like it’s suppose to happen.
We went to a pub for dinner. I ordered a lasagne. They didn’t have it. Then I ordered a Greek salad. I didn’t get it. Lucky I wasn’t hungry anyway. It wasn’t an amazing dinner; group dynamics were given a bit of a shake up which is never fun. Anyway, we wandered home through the square (video below) and it was lovely. Laughing in the cool (but not cold) air, crossing roads and just chatting all the way. NOW, it is bed time. But first, videos below for those of you interested.
Oh yeah. We got an email tonight warning us of a storm tonight. There’s suppose to be a snow storm. Seriously. It was 17 degrees today. Tonight we’re having a storm and tomorrow snow. It’s amazing. And when they say storm, they MEAN storm. And I know because for the last half hour I’ve listened to the buildings almost be ripped away by the gusts of windy blowing through. It’s on the way and it’s pretty exciting. A Mongolian storm!
ALSO I get to meet my host organisation tomorrow – which is who I’ll be working for and with for the next year. I’m pretty excited. I think I know what I’ll wear. It’ll have to be WARM though!
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