Extra Layers Are Your Friends

Hey whales, I geddit! I understand the whole concept of this blubber business you hold so dear. Fat is an excellent thermal insulator and as such, I have cultivated myself a tidy little layer to keep me going through this winter, as your good mammal selves tend to do. It has served me well so far, and I have even been enjoying my morning walks to work in -35 degress. So cheers for the inspiration good friends. That said, I don't quite want to become one of you, so I have been attempting some forms of activity here in Ulaanbaatar.

I learned to ski for the first time last week, and I also intend to spend much time at this wonderful place in the near future:



It is a warehouse skate rink right in the city. They only have inline skates, but I have great intentions to order roller skates from Texas so roller derby training can kick off in UB. Some people are good at inline skating. I'm not one of them. Plus the skates are kinda ugly.



I'm expecting more than a few collisions with the concrete and the snow in the coming weeks, but I don't think any of them will result in injuries as spectacular as those I sustained last night when some dude tried to steal my bag. Although I really don't like digital cameras, I have come around to my little Canon friend, so I decided I wanted to retain my bag, and the camera residing in it. Therefore he grabbed, I held on... and went for a derby-style knee slide sans knee pads.

Now that you've seen my spew, I feel it's only fair to share my bruises:



Who needs roller derby when you've got bag thieves?

Mongolian Metal

I've been to a few gigs since I got here way back in October, but none compare to the one we went to last night. It had it all: Cheap Russian beer in brown plastic bottles (a Russian longy, if you will), a raffle with a tattoo session as the main prize, squat toilets (complete with leaky pipes that sprayed a fine mist on you as you peed) and about 10 bands on the bill.

Squeezed in between more straight up indie rock bands were these legends:

This guy was clearly a fan:

Sam was perhaps a little less amused:


Katy won a prize in the raffle, but to her dismay, it wasn't a tattoo. She scored five plastic bottles of the Russian beer. Great for us, not so good for her, considering she doesn't drink beer. Nonetheless, she was very excited:


We later celebrated her win by dancing on stage with bands and then climbing a speaker stack for elevated dancing. Katherine and I further celebrated Katy's win by drinking her beer. Straight Arrows also represented:


As an aside, it should also be noted that Katherine is a winner herself. She's a winner not only because she's amazing, but also because she was given a giant novelty cheque. It's the stuff that dreams are made of. She won a raffle at a shopping centre. I see a trend emerging. Hey Crea, if you read this, can you please buy me a Lotto ticket?


Sketchy squat toilets: we survived! And lived to tell the tale! Or take a photo as the case may be. Here's Katy with the lovely Happiness after conquering toilets that make the Hopetoun's (RIP) look like bejeweled thrones:

More metal please. And maybe a meat tray.

Projectiles

I started feeling unwell yesterday afternoon, but couldn't throw up. So I left work with the aim of making it home for some quality couch time. Unfortunately, I didn't quite make it the whole way home without a small incident. I projectile vomited onto a tree. It was truly an exceptional force - I even impressed myself. Because it was -40 degrees last night, my spew had some time to freeze. I returned to visit it this morning, in all its frozen glory.

Sorry tree. Maybe it will serve as a lovely fertilizer? For the record, I am feeling much better today thankyouverymuch. I will not, however, be visiting the lunch establishment I visited yesterday for some time...

Extreme Sports #1: WALKING

Ulaanbaatar is an ice skating rink right now. In order to walk anywhere, one must add an extra 15 minutes to total journey time to allow for small steps, drawn-out road crossings and unpredicted ice spills. No shoe is good enough, although if anyone has any golf shoes, I'd be happy to give them a whirl. Mongolian women, ever-resilient, still manage to get around in stiletto boots, so my respect level for them has trebled since the frozen streets of doom appeared.

There are a number of techniques employed to survive the extreme sport of 'Walking in Mongolia in Winter'. I have outlined a few.

MONGOLIAN SHUFFLE
The #1 move in town, the Mongolian Shuffle bears some resemblance to its globally renowned cousin the Melbourne Shuffle. Consisting of small, simple foot movements where the feet remain firmly planted to the ground, it's the easiest way to cruise along an icy street with little fear of connecting a coccyx with the concrete. Allow me to demonstrate below.

WHO NEEDS A SKATEBOARD?
Use your shoes as makeshift ice skates and just slide along the ice to your destination. It's quicker and a whole lot more entertaining. Allow Sam + Clare to demonstrate below:

OFF-ROADING
The practice of walking through dirt, debris and trees to avoid actual paths and streets, thereby reducing exposure to ice. I employ this technique at every opportunity.

GRAB A STRANGER
Women often walk arm-in-arm and strangers at intersections have been known to grab unfamiliar elbows when crossing the road. This would seem to be a measure employed to aid stability, but I have another theory that it's just in practice to distribute the humiliation of a face plant a little more evenly, should one occur.

I have collided with the ice on four occasions to date. I'm still counting.

Good News Monday

On one of my early adventures around the city to hunt + gather my lunch, I lucked upon a wonderful place. Small, bustling and full of locals chowing down on traditional food like buuz, khushuur and one of my favourites, tsuivan, it was cheap, quick and tasty. The woman taking cash would ignore my order until I said it properly in Mongolian (or a fellow diner took pity on me and enunciated correctly on my behalf), and much of the time I had no idea what I was ordering, but I persevered anyway and hoped it would be the outside flesh of an animal rather than its insides I scored on my plate. Then I'd push my way to the front of the canteen style window to collect my food before finding an old lady or some Mongolian sparkies to share a table with. It was my favourite solo lunch-eating establishment until I was dealt a life changing blow on December 1, 2009.

Sender:

Sam Wearne

Received:

14:31:59

01-12-2009

I don't know how to say this but... your favourite restaurant has been demolished. Maybe we shouldn't have given them the mullah to consider some renos. Damn it!

To:

Sam Wearne

Sent:

14:33:07

01-12-2009

WHAT? SAY IT AIN'T SO. Where the fuck am I going to get lunch now?

Cue feelings of devastation and a hefty grieving period. Just to be sure Sam wasn't being a heartless bastard and messing with my fragile food-loving heart, I visited the site. I fell to my knees, sobbing when I saw a giant, gaping hole between two money changers where the restaurant once served unidentifiable meat goods and soggy steamed bread.

But today, I discovered that sometimes, (not that often) things happen very quickly in Mongolia, and that miracles can actually occur.

Sender:

Sam Wearne

Received:

13:30:52

11-01-2010

You're gonna love this. They rebuilt the restaurant already. I'm eating goulash and buuz as we speak.

To:

Sam Wearne

Sent:

13:39:33

11-01-2010

Holy shit. Life is good. I love this country!

How Cold?

See how my eyelashes are white? That ain't mascara. And those white frosty looking bits to the side? They're strands of my mother truckin' hair. Yes, yes they are. This was after I walked to work the other day. NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT A MELBOURNE WINTER AGAIN PEOPLE. If you click on the pic, you can probably get a bit more detail. I cut off my nose because no-one needs to see frozen nose hairs. No, really.

I Ate This #2

If you happen to follow my Twitter (yes, the internet and I are unhealthily close), you will note that over the new year celebratory period, I was coming home after many wonderful sessions with my friend Chinggis (he of the vodka variety) and eating fish cheese. I really don't think the cheese is made from fish, but fuck me if it doesn't reek of the ocean and taste a bit rank. I cracked open my 1L duty-free bottle of Jameson this evening and three minutes ago got a little peckish. Although I vowed not to do it again, I revisted my old friend, Mr Fishkäse. Here it is in all its resplendent, plaited glory:



And for the record, I did not purchase this smoked cheese monstrosity. My temporary Belgian housemate did. He also applauds foie gras and is about to go camping in the middle of a Mongolian winter, so it's possible his brain is a little confused.

Hibernate Me

It's well and truly winter here so I intend to spend much of January in hibernation. That means if you don't hear from me for a while, please don't be alarmed - I will be having the time of my life with Mad Men season 3, Woody Allen and the plethora of English language books I purchased in Berlin. I'll still post stuff here though - I'll just be avoiding other aspects of the internet. Here's a nice photo of some birds I took near Gandan monastery the other day after I went for my second ever stack on the ice. Consider it my photographic interpretation of the year ahead. Or just a pretty picture. More Berlin pics here with photos of New Years Eve in -30 on a frozen square to come soon. Шинэ жилийн баярын мэнд хvргэе.