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.