Sunday, August 26th, 2007
Ulaanbaatar, Week One
So I’m alive. And in Mongolia.
Yeah, I’m in Mongolia… still hasn’t quite hit home. I mean, I’m getting used to the idea, but walking down the street and looking around feels more like a vivid dream than reality.
The group I’m here with consists of five other students, 5 guys (including me) and one girl. All are complete losers. Just kidding. By far the most positive aspect of the trip so far has been the incredible group dynamic. As Kevin said the other day, he feels like we’re all old friends from school (after only a week), a sentiment I can echo wholeheartedly. We’ll see if things are still so rosy after a few months of close contact… but I have high hopes. A quick run-through of the group: Kevin is the red-head, and one of two from Carleton. He’s a religion major, has a girl waiting for him at home, and is completely obsessed with frisbee. Oh, and he’s from Salt Lake City, so we look to him when we need tips on fending off raucous mormons (just kidding). The other Carletonite is Adam, a chemistry major, also with girlfriend, who hails from the bourbon-soaked land of Kentucky. Andrew is a Swarthmore linguistics major who will hopefully provide us with his throat-singing debut during the ISP presentations at the end of the semester. He is also the resident hilarious-quote-generator. More of those to come later (if you’re lucky). Ethan is the quietest of the group, but when he speaks his dry sense of humor usually sets the rest of us into hysterics. He, also, has a girlfriend. (3/6?! Yikes). Last, but most important is Allison, the lady of the group, a biology major from UC Boulder. She keeps the rest of us from misbehaving too badly, and tolerates our juvenile humor.
We arrived on the first leg of the plane trip to Beijing, at around 5 am on the 21st. We decided we’d try to get into the city itself since we had 12 hours to kill until our flight to Mongol-land. I’m running short on time so I’ll make this short… and add more in later posts. Basically we scurried around the airport trying to find Kevin’s laptop, which he left while filling out a customs form. I tried to dredge some Chinese from the dregs of my memory, with a small degree of success, but our efforts at computer-finding were fruitless. Then we had to figure out a) where to go in the city, b) how to get there, and c) how much it would cost (so we could change some money). After meeting some random people who helped us find the right bus, we made our way into Beijing. First stop was the mighty Tianamen Square, which was cool. Not mind-boggling, but definitely worth the effort we put in to get there. We walked around and enjoyed a 50cent 1L Tsing-Tao at 10:30am. Which was fun. Then we went on a quest for food, as I was about to eat my arm. I managed to ask a security guard where we could find restaurants, and he directed us into the heart of a smaller neighborhood. Tianamen Square lies on a busy 4 pseudo-highway, which is sort of odd for somewhere that the bus calls “city center”. I was imagining a densely packed, bustling network of streets and shops and life. Instead it was open, expansive and completely lacking in food (at least along the street). Which at the time was high on my list of concerns. Once on the back streets we passed more than a few restaurants, and ended up deciding on one with nice lions and latticework outside. The ordering of food is a story in itself, one that I’ll save for another time, but once the food came, it was amazing. We had a whole roast Peking duck, a cold beef dish, some “cakes made with fish” (tasty, but we have no idea what they were), and some other stuff I don’t quite recall. After eating we walked back to the bus-stop and caught the airport shuttle back to… yep, the airport. We checked the lost and found one more time, then headed to our gate. Five hours later we were in Mongolia!
Mongolia has been pretty cool so far. Administratively, I’ve been less than pleased with certain parts of the program, namely the language classes. I was hoping that taking two weeks of lessons, for two hours a day (and $25/hour) would allow me to get a head start on things, and hit the ground running. Instead it seems either a) they don’t have a clue what they’re doing, and have no ability to assess what I already know (even though I took a placement test), or b) I learned much less than I thought, and wasted lots of money on lessons. Neither option is heartening. But we’ll see what happens, I’ll have faith in… oh, who are we kidding… I’ll continue to sing doom and gloom and hope events prove me wrong.
Otherwise we’ve spent most our time getting aquainted with the city, and preparing for our first homestay in Delgerkhaan, out on the steppe. We’ve been to Narantuul Market, a dance and music performance, several dinners, and had a tour of the city from our language teachers, a group of young students from the area. I’ll be sure to add more about UB and related happenings when I have more time.
And I’m posting the latest 100 or so photos to my flickr, so head here to admire them!
on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 10:21 pm:
Sounds amazing, and the pictures are great! Which camera are you using? (Can you rotate the pix so the slides are upright? Any way to put in a name/description?)
Looks like it’s chilly there already-everyone seems to be in jackets-which is strange because it’s 90 degress here.
What’s the music like?
on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 2:26 pm:
I will be reading your entries - this trip sounds INCREDIBLE - cannot wait to hear more
on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 2:30 pm:
Wonderful photos and intro to the group. I look forward to reading about the places you visit and what you learn about the culture, humanity and yourself. as soon as you start your home stay, the language lessons will pay off, I bet. Can’t wait to hear about your host family.
BTW, I’m taking a screenshot of this here blog to use (along with your EL170 blog) in a talk I am giving Friday to the PEA faculty on taking Harkness into the 21st century. Wish you could be there!
~Barbara
on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 10:58 am:
So there I am in the opening faculty meeting listening to Barbara Ganley and….BOOM…I hear the magic name…Alex Yule! You mean, I think to myself…you mean YULSIE!!! My ole pal Yulsie, whose postcard from Nepal (8/9/04) I still have on my classroom bulletin board. And of course it is.
Great to hear of your whereabouts. I wanna keep hearing about your adventures…and know when you’ll be back this way for a visit. Great adventures ahead, obviously, but then you were always the kind of guy who would make life (yours and others) interesting.
Gotta run to my workshop…but had to get a comment off to you.
Take care…and all the best from Exeter.
JH
on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 8:48 am:
Hi cuz, glad to hear that you have started the adventure. Haev you figured out yet if it is where they filmed “Crouching Tiger…” ? Enjoy the steppe, Love Deirdre