More Mongolia

So karaoke was pretty fun, even if I can't sing. This hostel that we're staying in is awesome, there are all these different people from all these different countries that just sort of hang out together. I'm really looking forward to coming back in 2 months.

So I guess Joseph was meeting up with one of his Russian friends who was also in Mongolia, which turned out to be a gigantic disaster. She had told the Rotary Club that Joseph and all of us would be coming with them, so they arranged homestays and stuff and then grilled Joseph when he went to dinner with him. This is completely bizarre because a) Ivan, Elissa, Sonya and I have never BEEN to this rotary club b) Joseph never ever said ANYTHING about going with them and c) he talked to her about how we were all going, staying at this hostel, going on this trip, and invited her to come with us...why would she think we were with them? Anyway we came to the conclusion that this was clearly not something lost in translation, this was some sort of mistake on her part/their part (they never even said anything to Joseph about it, she KNEW that he was coming with us and we'd be staying in this hostel, etc) and then she said something like "Joseph, if you don't understand something, just ask!". Anyway it's fairly clear that whatever they did they blamed on Joseph because of the fact that he's the foreigner in the group. I'm not explaining this very well but it was completely bizarre.

Later after karaoke I took a shower without flip flops. Whether or not I now have foot diseases is still unknown.

So the next morning we were picked up by our two Mongolian guides in this crazy military vehicle. One of them looked like a GI Joe, and the other was sort of like a Teddy bear (since we don't remember their names, this is how they will be referred to from now on). GI Joe had this tendency to just talk and talk and talk in Mongolian while driving, but Teddy Bear didn't always answer and he wasn't on his phone, so it sort of left us wondering a) what on earth he was talking about and b) who he was talking to. The next couple days we traveled around the steppe, rode camels and horses (horses for like, two hours, which made my feet FREEZING...I actually thought I had frostbite), and slept in gers (yurts). The first place we stayed had this Mongolian couple and they were SO cute. The man had this crazy pointy elf-like boots on. Anyway they were clearly very concerned about us being cold (for good reason) so they came and tucked half of us in before we went to bed and wanted to be COMPLETELY sure that we had at least one sleeping bag and giant blanket. Well, the fire went out pretty early that night and it was absolutely freezing by midnight...making it very hard to sleep. By 4 AM I had all of my layers on but was still so cold that I just sat up and waited until morning, when the mongolian woman came in and started the fire again.

Our guide was this amazing cook, so that was good (much of what we ate was made out of vegetables, something we haven't had in awhile, living in Russia and all). The next night we agreed to keep the fire going. We went to bed at like 10, and then I woke up at 11:30 to add more wood to the fire but it had already gone out. Words cannot explain the depression that set in at that point, when I realized I couldn't start the fire again (couldn't find the matches, the wood wouldn't catch fire from the coals, and the coals just turned the paper to ash instead of lighting them). Seriously. I was so sad. So that night was fairly cold too, but I slept better. The third night we kept the fire going until about 2, and then someone came in at five.

Our 2nd night we stayed at this ger with this feral mongolian child. His father took us around on horses and was the smiliest person I have ever met in my life. He said "good! okay!" all the time. Really great. Then this kid was like, INSANE. He just ran around the steppe with his little blue cart and screamed a lot. Sonya gave him a keychain to get him to close the door when I thought my feet were going to fall off, which was very nice of her. Anyway Joseph has some videos of this kid. He's crazy.

The next day we went to a monastery and ran into our Australian/English friends! And THEN they were staying at the same ger compound-like place with us! Crazy coincidence. We also watched this concert of this Mongolian guy who played a bunch of instruments and could do throat singing. It was really really good. Then we found out instruments are only his hobby, he actually works as an air traffic controller (I didn't even know they HAD an airport in this little village!) He only had one CD to sell, which I bought. Everyone else is going to copy it onto their computers and then I'm going to send it to our English/Australian friends.

So we got back and took a shower and whatnot before getting some stuff for dinner and going to the internet cafe. It was actually really nice to just chill out for awhile. BUT on the street Joseph ran into the Rotary Club president of Ulaan-Baatar, who went through this whole thing about how there must have been some misunderstanding and whatnot. We tried to explain that we never even gave any indication that we'd be traveling with Rotary Club of Irkutsk, nor did they ASK us (why would they just assume? Also Adrienne asked us if we wanted to and we told her no), nor had we ever BEEN to a meeting (only Joseph has). Anyway he didn't really listen well and insisted that we call him the next day. So the next morning we went to the local history museum and then called him. He then went into this whole thing about how he was going to call the Russian girl, Olya, and when Joseph tried to explain that we don't have a whole lot of time he didn't listen and just said he'd call back later. Anyway we're going to lunch today at 1, so hopefully that'll be fine. It is all completely bizarre.

Later we went to this puzzle museum, which was really interesting. There are like 18,000 chess sets there, all handmade. Some of them are like, civil war chess sets, Mets/Yankees chess sets, different animals, etc. Some of them are puzzles, and when you take them apart the box/board is accessible.

Later we had our little halloween celebration, with candy, chocolate covered apples, and orange-O-lanterns (no pumpkins here). I thought it was fun, and a lot of other people in the hostel came to hang out. But there was this COMPLTELY obnoxious and arrogant guy from England, who later walked around the city with us. This guy just loved listening to his own voice. It drove me CRAZY. We ended up having some sort of philisophical discussion, which was really annoying actually because half the time he would just be arguing for the sake of arguing, as opposed to actually defending one of his own viewpoints. We were also talking in circles, which I tried to explain, but he didn't beleive. I finally said that we weren't going to come to any conclusion about this and would have to just agree to disagree. He then asked me what I saw in some statue on the local square, and was not thrilled when I said that I saw a metal box with feet and hair. Very simplistic of me. I hate art. (That's not really true, just modern art, and when I'm in a foul mood I don't really want to analyze what this stupid statue "means to me")

Also I bought a hat. I was going to get it here or in Irkutsk, but it's the best one I've found and it's SO WARM. I think it's made out of rabbit fur. I love it a lot, but I don't love how much I had to pay for it (at the same time though, I wouldn't have found a much better price, but still). I think later we're going to lunch, maybe some palace, gathering food for the train, and leaving tonight around 7. Wheeeeee back to Irkutsk.