Wholly Cow!

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We arrived in UB yesterday, amidst quite some confusion about what the time was and how long our flight was meant to take. Gareth said 4 and a half hours, so we were quite concerned when they announced that the flight would take 2 hours. Glad that they hadn't just dropped us in the middle of the Gobi desert, we very much enjoyed the doughnuts we did coming in over the capital. The mountains are fabulous, the skies as blue as they say, and the scenery just like the postcards.

The city is quite a dustbowl...very lively, but with perilous holes every few metres in the footpaths(?). Quite an obstacle course, and sure to catch Mel out at some stage.

We were met at the airport by our director and colleague, who showed us to our apartment, which is shabby, but ours. We love it, despite the challenging multi-level-single-beds-shoved-together sleeping arrangement. The water ran red with rust at first, but now seems to be okay. We get some lovely morning sun through the big windows, and in the afternoon, the sun reflects off the buildings opposite, giving much the same effect.

We retrieved two boxes of stuff and 4 bright orange, blue and yellow Mongolian coffee tables from Tallulah's old apartment, as well as some of her paintings. With the decorative objects in the boxes, the fabric offcuts, the paintings and the coffee tables, it's very homely already.

We dropped into the school briefly, which freaked us out a bit as it seems to be a proper school, run by competent people...quite different from the Korean experience!

We're heading into the countryside a little way tomorrow, with our colleague, Tsend...definitely looking forward to that! We were approached by a Spanish couple in the street today who wanted to launch an expedition into the countryside and wondered if we were interested. It was painful to tell them we couldn't, as work starts on Monday.

The weather's quite hot, but nice and dry, unlike Beijing was. We've walked around the city from home today. It's quite an interesting little place, and there are lots of museums we'll eventually get around to checking out. The funkiest thing we saw today, though, was a sedan car, boot ajar, packed to overflowing with a whole dead cow. All the ribs and such, hanging out there for all to admire, glistening red in the bright sunlight. Mmmmmm!

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Photos

Where's Wally and his wife?
We live in the pink one that pokes out slightly from behind the big bright blue building. See it?