Day #2 in UB

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It has been 24 hours since I have had a meal. I am glad i had the foresight to pack fruit leather and raisins for they have provided me with needed sugar. I went to sleep at around 4PM yesterday and slept through until about 5AM today. The mattresses are very hard and I kept waking up with my arms asleep. Today I will be taken to my apartment though i will need to stop somewhere and get money in order to pay for it. Someone from the organization is picking me up between 10-11AM. Right now it is just shy of 7am and I have made myself a cup of tea, which in itself was an adventure. The cupboard in the kitchen was filled with various bowls of white granular substances. I tasted each one and found them ALL to be salt. Of course that makes sense since Mongolians are fond of milk and salt in their tea. So no sugar to be found, just a small honey bear with a sad film but with no amount suitable for tea or for anything else really. I elected for a dash of lemon juice to go with my tea. They also have this quaint plastic tea kettle which has a metal prong jutting out into the water reservoir. You plug this in and the metal prong heats up instantly and voila! in 10 seconds you have boiling water. Kinda wish i had one :-)

Took some dawn pictures though it was difficult to get my camera to read in semi-darkness so I had to wait for a little more light to appear. I m feeling even more theft aphobe after reading a bunch of postings in the guest house lobby about visitors who have been robbed and things to do to prevent theft. It says 1 in 10 tourists are robbed. Oh good grief...

Money is definitely an issue for me right now as I have an impressive stack of turogks but no idea how much they equate to. The total is a little less than $80 and i think I've determined that the 20,000 piece is approx. $18. The girl running the guest house told me that one dollar is equal to approx. 1,000-1,130 turogks though she didn't seem entirely sure on this conversion. When I arrived at the airport I spotted an ATM and had a moment of panic when I realized I had no idea how much money I would need in one day! But let's calculate my first day expenses:

$8 - guest house room
$.05 - 10 minutes of internet
$.50 - 3 minute phone call
$10 - Zaya's driver for petrol
EQUALS = $18.55

Not too bad especially considering I shouldn't be paying for drivers today as the organization will be picking me up and i have dedicated myself to exploring my local neighborhood near my apartment. I also need to buy an internet chord which will save me some money in the long run I think. I also need to get some real food as soon as possible to ensure that I keep up my strength. Perhaps I will get an early “breakfast” (what do Mongolians eat for breakfast?) and then try and find a market to buy some food for the apartment. I also have no idea what time restaurants open for early food... I will ask the girl who runs this joint when she wakes up. I wonder if it is too early for a shower.

Speaking of shower!! This guest house has a shower with glass sliding doors and with the full body spray, the above head drip spray and then a hand held nozzle so you can choose how you want to shower. Very neat but it is not built or bolted to the wall so the entire unit shudders a bit as you move around in it. Oh well, my shower yesterday was truly a spiritual experience as i was extremely sweaty and dirty from traveling (LAX and China were both extremely hot and the plane to China had the driest, most painful air that I have experienced thus far in my life.)

I should start packing and get ready to leave the house in search of food.


So I am all packed but my first attempt to get food has failed. Upon asking a new woman running the guest house where a nearby restaurant was, she did not understand so I ventured next door where I had seen the name of a tourist company catering to westerners that i had seen on the web. Upon entering the building i was immediately disheartened by the signs which were all in Mongolian (of course) and two front desk clerks who did not speak english. Upon mentioning “Nomads” (the name of the company) however he led me up 3 flights of stairs to their office. I really need to work on being able to say thank you in Mongolian! I feigned interest in the tours since I felt it would be rude to just outright tell them that I was starving and had no idea where to go for food! Then I told them I would have to ask the rest of my party and slipped in a request about restaurants.

“At 10 things should open up,” the Mongolian woman informed me and pointed out two restaurants I had passed on my way to their building. okay well that does me little good as my ride should be picking me up sometime between 10-11AM and i would not want to miss them. SO another fruit leather and a cup of tea I suppose.

Went to make some tea and the guesthouse woman offers me bread and jam, thank the goddess, and I help myself to a slice. As I munch she procures a bottle of what looks like margarine and offers this as well. “Excellent,” I think to myself, “some margarine would be lovely with this apricot jam (according to the picture on the tub.” I proceed to make my second slice and spread some “margarine” and then some jam upon the bread. Have mercy on my pathetic and naive American wits, the margarine was in face mayonnaise. Now.... I like mayo on turkey sandwiches or in egg salad. Mayo with apricot jam? Not so much. I am thankful the woman had walked away so as to spare her the embarrassing gagging response I had. I stealthily threw the piece of bread away which made me feel very bad and I punished myself by not having a second slice at all but rather by putting it all away and doing the dishes.

This reminds me... I blew up my hairdryer this morning. Now mind you it sounds more dramatic than what actually happened but upon getting ready to do my hair for the first time in Mongolia I plugged by hairdryer into the nifty Asian adapter (which had been very successful with my laptop) and within 2 seconds there was an extremely loud pop, a bright flash, and a tiny spiral of smoke emitting from the hairdryer plug. Freaking out, I grab the cord and yank it out of the wall and stand there staring at the wall in alarm. I was so afraid that i had started an electrical fire that I was shaking and felt quite ill. the wall looked splendid and unaffected by the electrical blast... my hairdryer on the other hand.... the red reset button on the plug itself was now black from the blast. I ran to my room and compared the specs on my laptop plug to the hairdryer plug but had a hard time finding the information. It was on the handle rather than on the plug itself. So the hairdryer was within v specs and within hz specs... but watts? My laptop has 120 watts while my hairdryer had 1180. I threw the hairdryer away.

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Comments

[Daria]

Glad to see you've arrived and are already getting into mischief... have fun and be safe.

[Rupert]

Patience...
You're doing an awesome job of adapting to the circumstances in a country very different in so many different ways from ours. I know. I have been there. Just try to eat something soon and stay away from their booze in the meantime! :)

[LinzTrotter]

HA!
You think I'd dare drink in a country where I barely know where my own apartment is?! Uhh yeah no thanks. :-) At least my office has good internet and I feel confident that I am at least capable enough to do the projects they have proposed.

[Naomi]

Blowing up stuff on your travels
Congratulations on the first blow-up. I blew up my camera battery recharger a few years ago so had to buy regular batteries. I learned that it took about 2 days on 4 regular AA batteries. Not good. Things like that make us seasoned travelers anyway. Do you have pictures of the damaged goods? :-)

[LinzTrotter]

Oh!
Well I'm glad I'm not alone! I felt very silly and now need to investigate my camera battery charger as well... luckily I haven't needed to plug it in yet. And NO I don't but now I'm very sad that I didn't take pictures of it! Ugh, well maybe there will be another :-)