Day 189: Monastery and Museum Hopping — Dinner with Wayne and Emily
After a 10am pickup we spent the morning at checking some cultural boxes:
Gandantegchinlen Monastery: we walked through as the monks were chanting from their [name] and then went next door to see the 26 meter gold Buddha. No pics allowed without paying but here’s one from the internet.
Ganzo mentioned several areas where Buddhists make wishes or seek good fortune including many of these spinning gold cylinders that Buddhists. There was a little temple with a pigeon sitting on top. James’s said, “That pigeon is wishing for all the crumbs in the world.”
National Museum of Mongolia: We walked through the history of Mongolia from ancient times through Chengis Khan, modern day socialism and eventual democracy. It was a nice museum — small enough to walk through with kids in an hour and still get the gist.
After several adult-focused museum / cultural tours with kids Margaret took a different approach today: instead of politely listening to a guide while subtly attempting to control the kids, when they needed to move on, she just moved on with them. For half the tour I was walking with Ganzo, getting his insights while Margaret and the kids were in another room entirely. One of us has to sacrifice but it’s better than both of us being frustrated / embarrassed and the entire group being distracted.
Mongolian Art Gallery: This was a super quick stop to see some beautiful photos of Mongolia on the second floor. The kids were into it. We went upstairs for an even quicker walk through of the collection of paintings including one of two stallions fighting which is on of the most famous pieces in Mongolia. Margaret bought two tote bags and we were out of there in 20 minutes.
We then had a fun lunch with Ganzo and Zaia (sp?) at Silk Road. We played the “Top 3” game and shared English and Mongolian tongue twisters.
The food was really good. James and Willa had their usual: a margarita pizza and pasta with butter and cheese. Margaret had a veggie salad with chicken. I had chicken tacos — a risky order that was surprisingly good. Ganzo and Zaia both had bone marrow steak. Apparently all Mongolians get their steak well done.
After lunch we stopped by a grocery store to pick up some fruit and sweets, gifts for our home visits in Gobi — oranges, apples, toffee and cookies.
We did about an hour of school when we got home and then I took the kids to the pool while Margaret went to the gym.
We joined new Brit friends Wayne and his daughter Emily for dinner. We met them at the pool a couple days ago. Wayne works for a mining engineering company, they’ve lived here in the Shangri La residences for the last 3 years.
We ate outside at the Naadam Bar. The kids colored, had their dinner and then danced the night away.
Margaret could see us from the room where she stayed, capturing birds-eye view video of the dancing and packing up the rooms.
We leave at 4:50am tomorrow for Gobi!
