We are planning a trip to Singapore over the Christmas holiday. Singapore, like many countries, requires that your passport be valid for at least 6 months from date of entry. Our daughter’s is not. So we are renewing our daughter’s passport overseas. And it turns out is amazingly easy to renew a US passport in… Read More Today We Renewed Our Daughter’s Passport (Overseas)
“Hey, this is an exposed, live wire!” “Can I take a picture of your electrical panel and send it to my friends?” “Oh, I see why this light doesn’t work…it overheated at one point and started burning the ceiling. Also, there’s no light bulb in it. I’ll take it off and cap the wires.” We… Read More Let There Be Light
One of my favorite Authors, Emily P. Freeman, posts quarterly about what’s she’s learned. I thought it’d be fun to share (some of) what I’ve learned this month. #1 Mongolian Embassy in Seoul, South Korea has relocated since March 2019. We’ve gotten used to things in Mongolia moving or disappearing but didn’t expect that to… Read More Things I Learned- July 2019
I love how weddings (and most holiday gatherings) include displays of talent. There were several dancers, a few singers, and some traditional Mongolian music on the horsehead fiddle. After the wedding, Cory was told to grab his camera and get in the car. The wedding party (in the decorated car below) simply pulled over on… Read More Chinbat & Pagma’s Wedding!
Cory’s got a camera and he knows how to use it. Our friend Pagma asked if he could take some pictures of her and her fiance to be used in a slideshow at their wedding. He was happy to. They went outside the city and spent about 10 hours driving around, avoiding rain, finding good… Read More Chinbat & Pagma’s Prewedding Photo Shoot
I’m seeing posts of friends at BBQs and pool parties from my friends in the USA. I’m seeing parades and fireworks and flags on Instagram and Facebook. And I’m not there to experience any of it. It’s one of the first times I’ve felt very disconnected from my home country since moving overseas nearly a… Read More Our 1st 4th Overseas
Our language school celebrated the end of the year with a trip to Terelj National Park. We rented a rustic ger for the day (but it did have a flushing toilet nearby so that’s a win) and got to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL scenery, delicious food, and great company. After driving through a couple rivers (there’s… Read More Terelj National Park
Because our normal (sort of Western style) grocery store had a fire a month ago we’ve had the opportunity to explore other shopping venues. After crowd sourcing how to buy meat at a butcher on Facebook, we gathered our diagrams and our courage and went to shop like a local. We went toward the end… Read More At the Meat Market
The store we buy our meat at had a fire and is closed for repairs so I can’t buy meat there. So I have to buy it somewhere else which is considerably more stressful because most places don’t have both Mongolian and English words in their meat sections. I realized that the tiny place I… Read More What Part of the Chicken is it?
Our whole family was out of Mongolia for one week, June 8-15, spending time in Thailand. During that week our hot water was shut off and our eMart had a fire and has been indefinitely closed. These two things have created a few complications for us. The Hot Water that Wasn’t First, we left Thailand… Read More While We Were Gone
People often ask what Mongolians eat. There are a lot of places you can find information about traditional meals and national foods (like what you’d prepare if you have guests coming over or are celebrating holiday) but what about the every day normal foods? I recently spent a week outside the capital city with a… Read More What Do They Eat in Mongolia?
When you have a head cold and someone offers to bring you soup, what kind is it? In the US, it was always chicken noodle. In Mongolia we’re more likely to be offered horse soup (flavored with garlic and ginger). Meat is a HUGE part of the Mongolian diet so, not surprisingly, there is more… Read More Mongolian Meats
Ellisons in Mongolia 