Newsstands

Newsstands in Mongolia display the newspapers.  I guess it helps people browse and decide if they'd like to buy the paper.  Notice anything strange about the pages they have choses to display?  Look closely....

I Heart Mongolia

I would expect to see this sticker on te backs of cars or pasted on my students' binders, but no! It's on garbage cans.  It took me a couple of days to figure it out, but I finally realised that the sticker is pasted all over the garbage cans to try to encourage people to actually use them.  I just wish there were a sticker for "pressing on your nose and blowing your snot out on the street and then wiping your nose with the back of your hand is unclean, spreads disease, and just plain gross-- i heart my fellow citizens", but there isn't.

Statuary

There are a lot of statues in Mongolia.  This one is in the Bayangol district, near where my part-time job is.  The first time I walked past, I was struck by the huge knockers on this broad (sorry feminists-- I'm a woman and that's my word choice!), but after I took the picture, I noticed that the shop behind this statue is the "Intimate Sex Shop"... perfect!

Gandan Khiid

Gandan Khiid is the biggest temple in Ulaanbaatar and (it's my understanding) one of the most important in all of Mongolia (though I could be wrong, so if I am, I'll stand corrected).  Some of my very first posts in this blog are from Gandan Khiid, but here is another picture I took of Gandan Khiid (and the surrounding ger district) from the top of the hill at that very magical ovoo.

The Ger District

I'm too shy to actually go into a ger district in UB (that, and I've noticed dogs on the outskirts of the ger districts, and I'm worried that if they don't know me, they might be unfriendly to a stranger walking through the ger district, and that could be a bad situation), but I do think they are really interesting.  Here is just a pic I took (with my "super" zoom on my camera which I mentioned before) from the top of the hill where the magical ovoo which helped me find my dream man is.

The Ovoo

I can't tell you exactly what an Ovoo is (or even how to pronounce it correctly), but I can tell you that what you're supposed to do is walk around it three times clockwise, pick up a stone (or leave another offering) and throw the stone onto the pile of stones and make a wish (thank you, Lonely Planet for those instructions!).  Sounds kind of ridiculous, but my wishes (I'm greedy, I made several) were something along the lines of get into law school (though I can't get in if I don't apply, and I haven't re-applied this year, so that was a wish wasted), and find a nice boyfriend, possibly even the man of my dreams.  Well, about two weeks later, I did meet a nice guy when I went to the ballet, and I think he is the most amazing person I've ever met.  I'm honestly not sure that I've ever been happier.  Is this the work of the Ovoo or is it merely a coincidence?  Whatever!  I'm just happy!

On my way to work

I decided to walk to work one day (a very long walk) and decided to stop at the Ovoo which is on the way to my work.  It was kind of cool.  Here are a few pictures from the entrance to the Ovoo.

Silk Scarves

Mongolians love tying or hangng scarves on random places.  They're very superstitious.  Supposedly, the colour of the scarf has some kind ofsymbolic meaning (so blue means something different from yellow means something different from green means something different from...), but I have no idea what that might be.  I think they just make for good photos.

Mini Monks

This photo was blurry because I was super far away from these bos and I didn't want to get too close to them to take the picture because I didn't want it to be obvious that I was taking a picture of them and, ahem, I did not want to ask permission to take their photo and have them tell me "no", so I just zoomed like crazy, and since my current camera only has something like 3.5X zoom, and then I have to go into digital zoom, this picture super sucks (even if the subjects are interesting).  I'll tell you (or Santa) all about my dream camera later on.

Fashion is My Passion

When I talked about the dearth of selection at the State Department Store in my earlier post, this is what I meant.  If these aren't hawt, I don't know what is.

Wodka

No, I didn't make a typo in the title of this post.  That's how Mongolians actually pronounce "vodka".  I have a linguistics degree, so I know a little bit about how to tell people how to pronounce speech sounds, and I tell them all the time, "no, when you talk about how much you love vodka, you have to bite your bottom lip and blow out. I promise I'm not trying to make you look like an idiot; that's just the way we do things in English", but I don't think they believe me, because I still hear a lot about "wodka".  Oh, okay, at least I tried.

More Milk

Last month (or maybe it was even in October-- I'll have to check), I made a post about the outrageous percentages of milk in Mongolia and about how 2% milk is touted as diet milk.  Well, here are the pictures that prove it.  I can'timagine pouring 3.5 % milk on my Cheerios in the morning... ugh!

Bakeries...

in foreign countries kill me!  I mean, they all have these BEAUTIFUL cakes, and you would expect them to taste every bit as good as they look, but somehow, they never fail to disappoint.  And no, I'm really not as picky as I know I sound.  It's like bakeries in Asia don't seem to think that sugar is an important inredient in a cake.  So thy don't put any in.  And maybe they also think that butter isn't too important.  So cakes are lackin in that.  And the result i a cake that is dry and not tasty.  Disappointment.  But they sure are pretty to look at.

The State Department Store

Lonely Planet describes the State Department Store as worth a visit just to see how much stuff they have all crammed into one building, so I visited expecting an eclectic mix of mayhem, but I was disappointed.  It just had your standard department store shoes, clothes, et cetera, but not even the best selection.  On the top floor, there is a very miniature food court (think, three options) and a bookstore that carries only Mongolian books and a few ESL textbooks.  There's also a stationery shop, which is decent, but much more expensive than the little shops that are everywhere else on Peace Avenue.  There's a gym, too, so if you feel like being pervy, you can stand and watch the buffest Mongols working out.  All in all, the State Department Store kind of depresses me.  And I don't like going there because I always have the impression that the masses of people standing around in front of the store or just inside the entrance are trying to figure out the best method to get into my pockets.

The Library

I'm too shy to ever actually go in here, plus I'm not convinced that there would be any books in there for me to read (ie., books in English or French that I would have any interest in whatsoever).  Never mind the fact that I *never* see people going into this building.  But I like libraries, andthis one always piques my interest when I walk past it.

Traffic

in UB is horrendous, particularly when you /really/ need to get somewhere.  But I think these pictures make UB look at least like a part-way decent city.

Just signing in to say...

Life is just so amazing right now.  It has nothing to do with Mongolia, really, but everything to do with the amazing guy I met.  He just continues to make me happy every single day!

The Mongol Rally

Last month, I missed the chance to meet one of the Mongol Rally teams.  They were the last team to arrive, and one of the members contacted me through couchsurfing, but we couldn't seem to get our schedules in sync so we didn't end up meeting up.  Too bad, but oh well.

The Boy

As I mentioned a few posts back, I met a boy the other week.  We were supposed to have a date on Thursday night.  And we had also made a day date for Friday.  And we had plans to go to the opera together on Saturday.  And it turned into a massive, never-ending three-day date.  And I'm on cloud nine.  Wow!  He is actually almost too good to be true.  I'm so happy!  This guy makes me happier than my last three boyfriends all added together!  I really hope this feeling lasts, and I can't see it ever stopping...

The Grab n Go

I've never actually eaten here, but it seems intriguing.  It seems like pretty much everything on the menu is meat, though, and I'm afraid of getting really low quality meat from places like this.  I should try it, though-- it just may surprise me.

Pizza Broadway

God, I've been in Asia for far too long.  I am now the type of person who takes photos of her food in restaurants.  A few weeks ago, I had the week off from my full-time job, so I decided to treat myself and go to a restaurant.  I'm not embarrassed to go to a restaurant alone.  This is Pizza Broadway on Peace Avenue.  I was surprised... it was pretty good!  I had the mango-something drink (it was the drink with mango and ice cream in it) and the BBQ chicken pizza, which was not at all like what BBQ chicken pizza is in Canada, but which was tasty, nonetheless.

Winter is Here!

I love everything about this lady's outfit, from her massive fur hat, to the colour of the blue of her fur-lined del.  It's incredible!  If I could pull that off, I absolutely would, but alas! I was in a fur shop the other week, and I was trying on large fur hats just for the fun of it, and they just really don't suit me!  Too bad, especially since they are ridiculously cheap here (think, $27 for a massive fur hat-- I'm not shitting you!).

Anyway, it's -25 Celcius with windchill here in Ulanbaatar.  I've tried telling people here that it's every bit as cold where I come from (the Canadian prairies) as it is in Ulaanbaatar, but still Mongolians insist on condescending to me about my ability to handle the cold.  Well, I've got news for you: with windchill, it is -40 Celcius in my hometown today.  Compared to UB's puny -25 Celcius (actually, -25 was a few days ago-- today felt a lot warmer than that).  It's actually COLDER where I come from, so will you please stop condescending to me about my ability to handle the weather?  Please!

Chess

The title of this post says that it is about chess, and the picture is, indeed, about chess, but o.my.god. I am not going to write about chess.  Just yesterday, I wrote about how my students make me happy.  Then, today, I come to my part-time job, and two classes in a row, my students manage to prove that wrong.  In the first class, I'm trying to explain something, and my students are sitting there talking to each other, joking around, and not listening whatsoever.  I told them that this behaviour was unacceptable, but they continued to do it.  I warned them that I can be either an extremely fun teacher (like what they have seen up until now), but if they disrespect me (and I feel incredibly disrespected when it's obvious that nobody is listening to me), then I can also be an absolute bitch.  Then, I go to my second class.  I start every class by reviewing the homework which I assigned in the previous lesson.  That way, we can be sure that everyone arrived at the correct answer and that they understand what we are learning.  It should take a maximum of twenty minutes.  Maximum.  This fucking class didn't do the homework.  I don't mean that a couple people didn't do the homework.  I mean that absolutely nobody did the homework.  Making them answer a question was like pulling teeth, and it took the entire fifty fucking minutes of class to review their homework.  I ended up slamming my whiteboard marker down four minutes early and walking out of class because 46 minutes of trying to be patient when I'm actually incredibly pissed off that no one did my homework is apparently all I can manage.  Thank you for listening to this rant.

10 Things That Make Me Happy

As you might be able to tell from my last post, I've been down lately.  I've gotta snap out of that.  So, here is a list of ten things that make me happy:

*Walking.  Walking around with not destination or purpose, just for the sake of walking.  I love walking, and I love that I am able to walk.

*Going to the ballet or opera every Saturday or Sunday night.

*My students.  I don't love teaching, although when I'm having a bad day, without realising it, without trying, and without fail, my students are always able to cheer me up.

*The new boy I met last weekend.  I know I've only known him for less than a week, but he seems like such a sweetheart.

*Pictures of my family.

*Talking to my family.

*Traveling.  It can be stressful, but I love seeing new places.

*Feeling in control: of my life, my health, my finances, everything.

*Shopping.  I can't do as much of that here in Ulaanbaatar because there is a considerable dearth of shops, but there are some cute souvenirs here, and that's fun.

*Eating.  I.Adore.Food.

The Three Hills of Misfortune 3

This is my last post with a picture of the Three Hills of Misfortune.  Again, I thought it was a beautiful ballet.  The costumes reminded me a bit of Ukrainian dance (particularly the men's costumes).  This is my favourite photo from Three Hills of Misfortune.  I couldn't get a non-blurry photo because I had to turn off my flash and the dancers wouldn't stand still for long enough for me to get a good shot.  I think the blurriness kind of adds to, rather than detracts from, this photo, though.  :)

In other news, I had a rather unfortunate and unsettling incident on the bus yesterday.  I started off this week on top of the world.  I didn't tell you before, but at the ballet on Sunday night, I met a boy.  I really like him.  He's cute and smart and really, really nice.  We made plans to go to the opera together this coming Saturday.  And we might bake a pumpkin pie together for American Thanksgiving (even though it's not Thanksgiving for me).  I was so excited about meeting this awesome guy, I felt nothing could ruin my good spirits this week.  Nothing whatsoever.  I was wrong.  Yesterday, I was assaulted on the bus.  For doing nothing at all.  I was sitting there, just minding my own business, when this crazy rabid bitch (a person, not a dog) attacked me.  She punched me in the face (she had a wimpy punch, though, so it didn't hurt), kicked me in the legs (again, she had a rather wimpy kick, so it was ok), and then she grabbed handfuls of my hair and pulled as hard as she could (that /did/ hurt).  Then, she starts bashing my head against the wall in the bus.  She had my head down and she was pulling my hair, so it was hard for me to put my head up to see, but I tried to hit her back anyway (I mean, I had to protect myself).  Finally, at last, I managed to grab on to a handful of her hair, and I think I was actually just about to get the upper hand when two people got in between us.  Funny how when she was kicking the shit out of me, none of the Mongolians on the bus got up to help, but when I started to fight back, there were immediately two guys in between us.  She is a lucky bitch.  At the risk of making myself sound like a crazy bitch, I wanted to pummel her.  I wanted to pummel her face over and over and over again.  I wanted to beat that bitch black and blue.  I wanted to knock her down and kick her senseless.  I did muay thai for three years, and I believe I would have been capable of this.  Never in my life have I ever wanted to beat someone up as badly as I wanted to beat her up (I have actually never ever until yesterday even remotely had the desire to even slap a stranger, but when you're attacked out of nowhere for nothing, it makes you want to fight back).  She is extremly lucky I didn't fight back (much).  She's lucky that the only fighting back I did was in the interest of defending myself.  She's lucky that I did not fight back in the interest of defending myself and of hurting her.  She's just incredibly lucky, that's all I can say.  I don't know how I held myself back (I could have gotten past those two guys in between us), but I did, and I guess that makes me a better person.

As I'm typing this, I'm reminded about the incident a few summers ago on the Greyhound bus in Canada.  I guess I'm lucky the crazy bitch didn't have any knives or guns on her, or else things might have been much, much worse.  As it is, my hair is considerably thinner today than it was yesterday (yesterday, after the incident, as I ran my fingers through my hair, I was also pulling out handfuls and handfuls of hair), and my neck and shoulders are killing me, but other than that, I am fine.  I need a hug.  I need someone to hug me while I cry.  But I'll be fine.  It doesn't make me think too much of Mongolians right now.  When I look at my colleagues or my students, I try to remind myself that they are not the same as the girl on the bus, that the bus incident is an isolated incident, that the people who are normally around me are good people.  Still, I can't help feeling that when my contract finishes, I will be out of here so fucking fast, they'll never see me go, and I never plan on looking back.  The only thing that is getting me through this week now is how much I'm looking forward to seeing the boy this weekend.

The Three Hills of Misfortune 2

Today, another post about the Three Hills of Misfortune.  I really loved this ballet.  For me, it's right up there with The National Ballet of Canada's presentation of the Four Seasons, Alberta Ballet's Carmina Burana, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's interpretation of The Magic Flute as far as favourite ballets I've ever seen.  One thing that really struck me about The Three Hills of Misfortune was the amount of flexed footwork (the second photo of this post is a great example).  I've never seen so many flexed feet in a classical (character-classical?) ballet, and it was BEAUTIFUL!

The Three Hills of Misfortune

When I went to see the Three Hills of Misfortune last month, I didn't really know what to expect.  I wasn't even entirely sure whether I was going to see a ballet or an opera, but I was delighted to find that it was a ballet!  I adore the ballet!  I did ballet for twelve years when I was growing up, and I did Ukrainian dance for ten years.  Since there was some overlap in the time I did ballet and the time I did Ukrainian dance, I actually danced for thirteen years.  Now that I'm getting to be an oooooo-la-looold lady, that's just under half my life that I spent dancing, but it's still a pretty significant chunk of my life, particularly considering that I don't remember most of my first three and a half years, but I do remember all the years I spent dancing.  But I digress...

... back to the ballet!  It was incredible!  It was classical ballet, but it managed to make me nostalgic for both ballet and Ukrainian dance at the same time (usually, I only ever miss one or the other, but not usually both at the same time).  It was incredible.  It was beautiful.  It was moving.  It made me want to cry (I sound like a big baby, don't I?), and I'm not usually one to be moved to tears by art or dramatic presentations.  It was just incredible.  The storyline, itself, was little more than a Mongolian adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (from what I could gather-- I was too cheap to buy a programme), but the sets, costumes, and especially the dancing was were all absolutely amazing!  If you ever go to Mongolia and have the opportunity to see this ballet, please do. You won't regret it!

The Fountain of Bakhchisarai

Tonight, despite the cold outside and the invitingness of my bed and my comfy blankets, and the fact that I've developed an attachment to sitting by my window sipping delicious hot chocolate made with hot milk, I made it to the opera.  Tonight's opera was "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai".  Because of the title, I was expecting a Mongolian opera, but then, when I went to buy my ticket, I saw a notice on the wall that said it was an opera by Puccini, so then I was expecting some kind of Italian opera.  Imagine my surprise!  It was closer to a Mongolian show after all!  So, when I got home, I googled "Fountain of Bakhchisarai" and found that it was actually originally a poem by Pushkin.  But, my surprise didn't actually stop at the fact that it was a Mongolian-type performance.  I was also surprised to find that I was watching a ballet, not an opera.  The poster outside definitely said that the show was an opera, but I adore the ballet, so I was so happy to find that the sign outside was misleading and we were watching the ballet version of this story, instead.  And it was so cool.  It was part classical ballet, part character ballet, part Ukrainian-type dancing, part belly dancing (en pointe), and all beautiful.  This is my second Mongolian ballet that I've seen.  I have to admit that I think I enjoyed the other Mongolian ballet (The Three Hills of Misfortune) slightly better, but really only slightly.  Maybe tomorrow, I'll post some pics from The Three Hills of Misfortune so you can see what I'm talking about, and later on either next week or next month, I'll post some pictures which I took from The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

Blackout Mongolia?

If only there were a Blackout Mongolia blog the way there is a Blackout Korea blog.  Le sigh...

The Hi-Fi Music Store

I love this music store.  It's on Seoul Street.  Remember the post in which I talked about finding Time and Newsweek in English and then said that I thought the Mongolian porn was much more interesting and bought some for my brother as a Christmas gift?  Well, this is the same store.  Only, every time I've gone back, they haven't had any more Time or Newsweek in English.  Too bad.  But I still really like this store for some reason.  One day, as I was walking down Seoul Street, I heard Arcade Fire blasting down the street.  What do you suppose was the source of this musical delight?  You guessed it!  Hi-Fi Music Store!  I'm in love.

One of those weeks

Argh!  It was one of those days/weeks where I had so many profound things to say.  I ran to my computer to write it all out for this blog, and.... the internet connection wasn't working.  And it stayed not working for three days.  And now that it is working, I can't remember what all those profound things I had to say were.

In other news, I got attacked by a big German shepherd yesterday.  As you know from my earlier post about dogs and cats, I adore both dogs and cats.  Dogs don't scare me.  I love dogs, actually.  I don't misinterpret a dog jumping up on me to lick my face as an attack.  No, I know that's playing.  But when a dog pounces on your back and tries to knock you over and rip your flesh off, then that's definitely what, in my vocabulary, counts as an attack.  I was especially angry because its bitch of an owner stood there laughing instead of the more acceptable reaction, which ought to have been to apologise profusely to me for her ill-bred, ill-trained, and ill-mannered dog.  I may have called her a few names, but I don't think you can really judge me for that unless you've reacted more magnanimously after having been attacked by a monstrously big dog and then watched in dismay as its owner did nothing more than stand and laugh at your terror.  Seriously, it was one of those "fuck Mongolia" moments.

Feeling Bleh!

I got very sick yesterday.  Well, it was the sickest I've been in close to a year, anyway.  I'm not sure if it was a very mild flu or if it was food poisoning, but I just felt sucky.  Since I've decided to not get a phone here in UB, I couldn't call into work, so I had to go to my part-time job, hoping they would send me home.  I couldn't have called in to work anyway because people tend to not believe me when I say that I am sick (I was actually misdiagnosed as a hypochondriac once when in fact I have a degenerative autoimmune disease).  So, I went to work, felt sucky, went to the bathroom and threw up, and yep, I did get sent home.  My boss forced me to drink some Theraflu and then she drove me home (that was nice, or else I would have been stuck on public transportation in that state), and I went straight back to bed.  I've slept for close to two days straight now and I feel close to 90% of normal!  Huzzah!  I will go in to work tonight, even if I'm not 100% my normal, bouncy teacher self.

Incidentally, speaking of being sick, my first thought when I saw this bus was that the Easter Bunny must have thrown up all over it.

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 4

I am all out of ballet and opera tickets.  Horror of horrors!  I bought about six tickets, and the last ticket was for this past Saturday.  Actually, I have a small confession to make: for the past few weeks in a row, when it came time to go to the Opera House to use my ticket which I had already bought, I looked out my window at the cold day in Ulaanbaatar, I looked at my cosy, comfortable bed, I looked back out the window, I looked back at my bed, I considered which piece was being performed, I considered the money I would be wasting (less than $5, in both cases), I checked the schedule to see if I could catch the piece later on in the year, and I dove into bed and placed my covers over my head and fell soundly asleep.  Two weeks in a row!  Well, now I'm out of tickets, and I'm thinking that maybe if I'm going to pull that stunt very often, maybe I shouldn't buy any more tickets, but noooooo!  I love the State Opera and Ballet Theatre.  Once I actually motivate myself to leave my apartment and go out into the cold day, and once I actually arrive at the theatre, I love it!  I seriously love everything about this theatre!  Tomorrow, when the box office opens up, I'll buy maybe eight more tickets... that should keep me entertained until January.  And by the way, I really want this painting!

The Butchers #2

If you read my post which immediately precedes this one, you would know about my childhood and my stance on meat-packing and butchers.  You would remember that I don't find it inhumane to slaughter animals (even though I do hardly eat any meat at all these days, but that has nothing to do with a moral dilemma), and that I kind of find it fascninating to stand amidst the butcher shops in a foreign country, even if I can't find the words to explain to them how I'm different from the standard gawping whitey tourist.

Some people might say that they think a cart full of innards and heads is gross, repulsive, revolting, sick.  But me, I find it fascinating.  Like I said in the last post, if it were a cart piled with human heads or kitten heads or puppy heads, I would be outraged and sickened and wouldn't be able to look, but these, these animals, they were bred right from the beginning for this purpose.  They never had any other purpose in life than a trip to the slaughterhouse so someone could have some sustenance.  And of course, as always, this trolley (anything butcher-related, really) fascinates me.  We used to always cut the tongues out of the animals we slaughtered.  Some people liked to use them as fishing bait, and some old-timers liked to boil and slice them to make sandwiches.  But as you can see, here in Mongolia, they do not cut the tongues out of the heads.  Maybe this has something to do with the fact that Mongolians like to boil an animal's head whole, and then cut chunks of meat off of it.  I'm just speculating, but maybe, in that case, just maybe the tongue might be a special treat.

ETA: Just yesterday, I was walking around downtown Ulaanbaatar, and I saw three street dogs stop in turn to sniff at something on the sidewalk.  I got a little closer to see what this something was, and it was none other than an animal skull which had been boiled and picked clean!  Only in Ulaanbaatar can you find animal skulls laying around on the sidewalk and nobody looks twice because they don't see anything abnormal about that.

The Butchers

Growing up, my family owned a small meat-packing plant.  We did it all in our meat-packing plant: slaughtering, processing, and selling retail and wholesale meat.  Since we didn't have much money, we couldn't afford babysitters, which meant that my brothers and I got to spend almost all of our spare time at the meat packing plant.  My personal favourite part of the meat-packing plant was the kill floor.  If my parents were ever uncertain of where I was, they would know to go look for me at the kill floor, and sure enough, ever time, they would find me, mouth agape, as our employees slaughtered beef after beef after beef.  You would think that this kind of upbringing would have scarred me for life, turned me off of eating meat, or turned me into some kind of sadistic human being, but none of that is true.  It just developed in me an understanding of where meat comes from, that if you want to enjoy the bacon at Sunday brunch, someone has to slaughter Piglet.  I also actually really like meat (although I rarely eat it these days).  When I was young, I knew from the moment the animal arrived at our meat packing plant until the moment it touched our dinner table exactly who had handled it and how it had been handled.  I had no guilty conscious, because I knew we didn't needlessly torture animals (we just did what we needed to do so all of our customers could enjoy their delicious ribeyes), and I had no worries about the health of the animals which were now our dinner, as my dad knew a lot about meat, and if he felt that it was not a good quality, he would either let that specific customer know that he thought that the cow they had brought in would not yield quality beef or (in one exceptional circumstance) did his best to have the meat condemned when he found that a 4H calf which had probably been sick at 4H time had likely been doctored to not appear sick, but he knew as soon as he saw the meat that there was a problem.  Of course, the vet wouldn't hear of condemning this calf.  All I could think was "Thank God that's not going to end up on our table, then" because, for however much I respect the expertise of a doctor or vet, when it comes to all things meat, my dad's word really is gospel.  And as far as growing up watching cows being slaughtered, no it did not turn me into a sadistic human being.  Yes, when I was a child, I thought, "How cool-- all the other kids also enjoy 'Lamb Chops Play Along'!"; I just didn't realise that they were watching TV, and I was watching something totally different.  And truth be told, if I saw a beheaded cat or puppy, I would be outraged, whereas the carcass of a cow, sheep, pig, buffalo, etc doesn't even move me at all.

I've got to admit, I feel like a terrible daughter, that when I reached a certain age, I refused to work at our meat packing plant.  Kids called me "meat bitch".  That was uncool.  But even so, now, when I am in foreign countries and I see foreign butchers, I have to stop and linger and watch for a bit.  I seldom take pictures because one thing that is universal for butchers is that they don't seem to like having their pictures taken.  I can understand.  If, when we had our meat-packing plant, a crowd of Japanese tourists had burst in and started snapping pictures of me as I worked with my bloody apron and bloody hands, I would have been so upset.  So yeah, I know where butchers are coming from when they tell me to put my camera away, and I rarely have the linguistic skills to explain to them that this is what my family used to do for a living as well.  Once, in Jordan, I was able to explain it to a butcher whose photo I had just taken (I had been taking an Arabic class), and his demeanor towards me immediately changed.  Suddenly, I was just like him, and not just an overprivileged white tourists.  I guess that is a butcher's biggest problem with having their photo taken.  Not only do they not enjoy being captured on film smeared with blood, but they also take pride in their work and they don't want it belittled.  They know that if you are taking their photo, it's likely not so you can show your family and friends back home what skill and care they put into their job.  They know that your reasons for taking their photos are the same types of reasons that someone will exclaim, "This food is so gross! You have to try some!"

It saddens me a bit that I can't explain to foreign butchers that, for me, my interest in their work is very different from that of the typical tourist.  When I pass by a foreign butcher, I'm filled with nostalgia as memories from my childhood come flooding back to me.  Yes, even though the meat on offer in butcher shops in foreign countries is often very different from what we processed in Canada (in Mongolia, it's anything from beef, sheep, and goat to horse, camel, and yak), it's the slabs of meat and tubs of discarded bones and bloody aprons that remind me the most of my childhood, and it makes me sad to have (probably) disappointed my parents so much when I decided I didn't want to work in our meat-packing plant and it also makes me miss my family immensely.

The Fix-All: Scotch Tape

In September and October, before it got really cold, the city of Ulaanbaatar was working feverishly to build/repair many of the sidewalks.  Notice anything off about the hammers they are using to pound in the sidewalk tiles?  Look closely....

Hammer held together with SCOTCH TAPE!  Maybe Red Green's got it all wrong-- all you really need is scotch tape!

Bringing the Farm into Town

I posted a picture that looks almost exactly like this one last month.  If you shifted just a couple of degrees to the South, it might actually be the same picture.  In fact, I may have even been standing in roughly the same spot on Peace Bridge when I took the other picture.  What I was trying to capture here (and what I think I failed to capture) was the fact that someone had brought their cows to graze in this big open space (yep, those specks that you can just barely make out are cattle).  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me and I can't zoom with my iPhone, so this was the best I could do.  Another time, I saw some cattle grazing on a very small triangular patch of grass that was in between the two lanes of the highway, but that time, I didn't even have my iPhone with me.  The only other place I've ever seen farm animals roam freely around a town was in a very small and remote village on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

The Mugging #2

I've been going to bed too late lately, and I'm extremely tired because I think I need more sleep than the average person (I have an autoimmune disease, and quite often, people with autoimmune diseases do need more sleep than normal people), so I decided to go to bed early last night for a change.  Yeahhh!  Wrong.  At 1:30 in the morning, I get a knock on my door.  I ignore it because I'm asleep and it's the middle of the night and I don't want to ruin the first night in a long time that I have decided to treat myself to a good night's sleep.  Then, I hear people in the hallway outside my door having a loud discussion.  This is terrible, because the sound in my building travels ridiculously well, and the hallway echoes, which meant that I could hear everything in my apartment.  And it did disturb my sleep.  So finally, I get up to look outside and think I might ask everyone to be quiet or to take the conversation into someone's apartment and close the door so they don't have to disturb me.  When I look outside, I see that it's my boss and my neighbour.  My neighbour, the same guy who got mugged a few weeks ago.  And he drinks too much.  So I start to put two and two together, and figure he's probably drunk and lost his keys or something.  And I don't want to get involved because in many countries in Asia, you lose face just by involving yourself in a situation.  So I close my door and try to go back to bed.  But they continue being as loud as ever, so finally, I get up and go out of my apartment and I go up to them.  My neighbour is like, "Duuuuuuuuuude," (he is obviously very drunk) "There's nothing.  There's nothing in my apartment."  Whereupon, I assume he means that he has been robbed and there is, in fact, nothing in his apartment, so for just a second I am really concerned for him, but then he continues, "I went to the club and I was going to get some ____________, but it was a lie!  It was a lie!  They didn't have any ______________.  So I was on my way home in the taxi and they took it.  They took everything.  They took... they took like... a hundred dollars!  They took a hundred dollars.  And they took my cigarettes.  And they took my keys. And I can't get in.  I sleep here tonight."  And he sits down on the floor in the hallway.  Which I kind of felt like it was a request for someone to invite him into their apartment for the night.  No fucking way!  I need my sleep, and when he's drunk, he tries to do inappropriate things like tickle my feet and stuff, and I need my sleep, and I don't fancy the guy, and I don't fancy not getting any sleep because he's in my apartment for the night.  So, I just turn around and walk back into mya apartment and hope he doesn't notice me go.  I mean, should I feel bad that I don't feel bad for him at all?  I mean, last time he got mugged, I felt extremely sorry for him.  I went out looking for him with his girlfriend (see my post from October called "The Mugging"), and when we found him, I brought him back home, and I helped him find a way into his apartment (because he had also lost his keys that time, too), and I stayed with him until he calmed down, and I actually even cook for him, but all he did was insult my cooking because he had seen me put a little salt in it, so he decided that it was too salty, so instead of fucking thanking me, he just insults my cooking.  Okay, I had thought, he's drunk and upset, I'll let it slide.  But the next day, once he was sober, the one thing he seems to remember is that he thought my cooking was too salty (which it wasn't-- he was just a drunk idiot and likely doesn't know what good food is).  And that kind of hurt my feelings because I had taken a good four or five hours out of my evening, which I had intended to be a relaxing evening, to help him out.  And that's the kind of thank you I get.  But I did still feel bad for him that he had the awful experience of being mugged.  I mean, it sounded terrible.  But, I figured he had probably learned from that time.  I mean, he had been drunk and alone, and it was getting dangerously close to dark.  I mean, I definitely learned from his mugging experience.  The things I took away from it were in the form of a few rules I made for myself: (1) no public drunkenness, ever, under any circumstances; (2) don't carry anything that will make me look like an appealing target to a mugger (I try not to carry my camera with me too often, I try to bring only what I can fit into my pockets so I won't have to bring a purse, and I carry less than 10,000Tugrug with me at all times); (3) avoid taking the so-called taxis here in Ulaanbaatar; and (4) if I can avoid it, I don't go out after dark.  I just assumed that my neighbour had also learned at least a few of these lessons from his first mugging experience, so now that I find that he in fact learned fuck-all, and he thinks it's okay to disturb my sleep because of it, no, I don't have any pity or sympathy.  I mean, yes, I know that opportunistic crime is rampant here, but that's just the thing-- it's opportunistic.  Just don't give them the fucking opportunity.  This guy insists on going out to clubs, getting wasted, and coming home alone in taxis.  He's begging to get mugged, and he's gotta know it.  So I wasn't sorry for him.

Anyway, about my picture today, I saw this dude with a snorkel fitted onto his SUV.  Traffic was monstrous, so he snaked past me a few times, and finally I decided to get my camera out.  I mean, it's like, 'Dude, you live on the Steppe. WTF do you need a snorkel on your SUV for?'  He must have thought I was crazy for taking his picture because, as you can see, he gave me quite the look when I took a picture of his vehicle.

The Mural

I took this picture before I realised what building it was even on.  I just thought it was kind of cool that there was a giant communist-era mural on the side of the building.  The building, I later found out, was the Museum of Mongolian History.  Ah, fitting, I thought.