Mn.
I’m here!
I left Las Vegas around 8 on Saturday night entrusted my 120lbs worth of luggage to the luggage fairies and boarded my first of three flights with another 30lbs of carry-on luggage. Fortunately, I was able to whisk through all three boardings without having to surrender my larger carry-on to gate-check. I spent four hours in LAX, three hours in Beijing, and finally landing in UB (Ulaanbaatar) around 10am Monday morning. My flights and transfers went very well. On the first flight, I ended up talking to the Hungarian woman next to me who ended up invited me to stay with her at her home in Australia if I’m ever in Sydney. The flight to Beijing was pretty uneventful. The upside was that the meals were surprisingly tasty. But on the downside was that there were no seat-back TVs like, only overhead TVs, which made the flight sort of drag by. When we landed in Beijing it was 6 am and the airport was empty. It was a little tricksy finding the international transfer area, but once it did it was a breeze to get to my gate and plane. The flight to UB lasted about two hours. At Chinngis Khan International Airport I zipped through immigration, picked up all 120+ lbs of luggage, carted it out and was met by Gina, Roman, and Ganzukh. We wheeled my luggage to the farthest end of the parking lot before unloading it to continue dragging it toward a bus stop. After catching a city bus we rode the half hour or 45 minutes back into the city from the airport. When we finally made it to the flat dropped off my stuff and went back out into the city. The rest of the day included dodging traffic, changing money, awkward meetings with the new President of NUM (National University of Mongolia) and our new boss at VoW (Voice of the World), adventures in ordering Mongolian food, following Roman around mildly sketchy back roads to various places around the city, and falling asleep during the Cameroon/Japan match.
On Tuesday we went into Roman’s office to catch up on internet time, had a meeting between Roman, Gina, and I about the Mongolian AIESECers, what they’ve been doing, who has been responsible for what, and did a little bit of preparation for the GMM (general member meeting) that night. We then had lunch with one of our BOA members, an American named Jim Dwyer who is on the Business Council of Mongolia. It went really well, which was a nice change from the meetings the day before which were both awkward and unproductive. Jim also showed us the local art gallery that is a part of the same building that Saffron (the place we had lunch) and Khan Bank are in. He made suggestions about other art galleries to check out in the city as well as another restaurant run by the same chef, and Millie’s Café which is run by a Kenyan expat for part of the year and her Cuban chef and his Mongolian wife for the other part of the year. Millie’s is supposed to be a well known expat lunch spot. Even if it is supposed to be a hangout for stuff y old expats, I still really want to try Kenyan/Cuban/Mongolian cuisine. After lunch we went to drop off invitations to a ceremony next Tuesday for the previous term to some of the people and businesses that have supported @Mn for the last year, ordered business cards, and went to our first GMM with AIESEC Mongolia. The GMM went pretty well, we dance and introduced ourselves, and then split the kids up into their groups so Gina and I could start to get to know them. Trying to pronounce their names was a flustercluck. I only had 6 kids in my group (Gina had 9), and I can still only remember 3 of their names. (Oyunbold, Tuvshu, and Odnoo.) I’m still working on the rest. After GMM we went to the Grand Khan for drinks. Gina and I stayed for the beginning of the Slovakia/New Zealand match before going back to the flat to make dinner.
Wednesday we did a lot of walking according to Roman, as opposed to the last two days when we only did sort of a lot of walking. Started off the day with another meeting with Roman and Gina about the planning and scheduling for June-August. The three of us then went to lunch with another BOA member, Luvsan who is a Mongolian alumn from AIESEC Australia. Both lunches were paid for by the BOA guys and were at ritzy business restaurants (holla). After lunch we dropped off more invitations, picked up our business cards, and went back to VoW for a follow up meeting about working for them. We finally got our schedule and salary settled with Altaa. After VoW, Roman, Gina, and I went to visit Andrew (Gina and my third roommate for now) at the radio station he does a show for. We ended up be sucked into being guests on one of their shows while we were there. Then Andrew shared some of his extensive knowledge about orcas with us. For example, did you know that orcas are dolphins, not whales? They are called killer whales because they kill whales. And, that orcas around the world kill differently based on what they are eating. Some stun fish by smacking then with their tails then scoop them up in their mouths, where others will beach themselves trying to get seals and such? Yeah, I didn’t know that either. Go fig. After the radio show R, G and I went to a weekly drink rendezvous with a bunch of expats in the area. It was okay. But, a combination of aching feet, sweaty B, and general exhaustion makes B antisocial. We’ll probably be back throughout the year especially after Pago gets here. It’ll be good for business contacts. Then we escaped that by going to dinner at another AIESEC supporter’s house. He is an Italian expat entrepreneur who has been in UB for 6 years. It was nice, I was still tired and not very good company. G and I finally went home after dinner and crashed.
It’s nice to be meeting so many people in the expat community. For one thing, I never expected it to be so big in UB. But there are a lot of western expats in the area – especially Aussies. But, I’m more excited about spending time with local Mongolians than the expats. I can be around westerners anytime. Bring on the Mongolian. G, maybe P, and I are eventually supposed to start taking Mongolian lessons from a lady that some Brit knows that R knows. It’ll be nice to be able to do more than just point and grunt and look like an idiot.
I finally was able to sleep past 7 o’clock this morning. I was awake at 6 on Tuesday and 5:30 yesterday. Ick. I got up, heated up some water in our electric kettle so I could shower. We don’t have hot water yet. They are working on the pipes in the area so they are deeper in the ground and less likely to freeze this winter. This makes for interesting “showers”. After splashing a bit of kettle water on myself and sort of washing my hair I finally called it quits in the shower. Hopefully things will be less awkward and inefficient soon. I got dressed and since I was the only one awake and we didn’t have bread, I decided to take a walk. I’ve been eating mostly toast for breakfast because G and I haven’t really had a chance and guide to get us to a market yet, and without bread there is no toast. So, I went in search of bread. I was just going to stop at the store in our courtyard area, but she was closed. I discovered how to get around our block, and found an open store on the way. I got yogurt and bread for breakfast today. The yogurt was super delicious so we definitely need to get more of that going on. I’ll probably try to get eggs and preserves in the next few days just to spice up b-fast a little bit more. Other than that we have other meetings planned for today and should be getting internet in the apartment this morning! Fingers crossed. At this point, I agree with G – I’d rather have internet right now than hot water. I still want both, but the no internet thing is getting old.
We were supposed to get internet on Thursday in the apt. But, it didn't happen. Then we were supposed to get internet today at 10am. Didn't happen. Now, they are supposed to come at 4pm today. We'll see.
Anyway. Today's acronym is not actually an acronym but an abbreviation for Mongolia. UB is Ulaanbaatar.
