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 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.

In the moment

I like finding neat examples of Asian architecture in Mongolia, like this gate (?) in downtown Ulaanbaatar.  I'm not sure what the name of this street is, but this is right in front of Tengis (the movie theatre), whatever that street is.  Also, I love taking photos of people unawares.  I know that politesse dictates that I should ask before taking a person's picture, but then you just get these really obvious pose pictures, and sometimes that works out fine, but lots of the time, it doesnt.  I don't know the people in this picture, but I like the in-the-moment-ness of their conversation, and I wouldn't have captured that if I would have stopped to ask them their permission.

Buildings in Ulaanbaatar

When I was deciding to move to Mongolia, of course I promptly bought my Bible, Lonely Planet, and I was super excited to see some pictures of what the place actually looked like, but in fact, Lonely Planet only had pictures of the countryside and, while Mongolia's countryside looks beautiful and everything, I get tired of looking at even my own landscape pictures, let alone countless photographs of someone else's landscape pictures.  I tried looking up in the LP for a description of architecture in Mongolia, but there was not much there, maybe a few lines to say that many of the old monasteries had been destroyed during Stalin's purges and that the architecture here was "boring" (my interpretation, not LP's actual words).  One of the building was described as "salmon-pinkish", which, now that I've seen it, is indeed salmon pinkish in colour, but it's much more than that.  It's got big columns (Corinthian? Doric? Ionic?  I'll have to take a closer look next time) and big wooden doors, two big concrete lions, and I think it's a genuinely interesting building to look at, despite its unfortunate colour (there are at least three salmon pinkish buildings in Ulaanbaatar-- maybe they got a big discount on stucco that colour).  Other building features which have caught my eye are the mosaics you will see on the sides of some very old communist-era apartment buildings, like the one in this picture.