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
One great thing a out living in Mongolia is that restaurants are less expensive here than in the USA. Today we had a lunch date. For the equivalent of $12 USD we got two giant burgers with fries, a salad, and two Cokes. The burgers came with gloves because they get so messy. My burger… Read More Food is less expensive here.
On Friday I couldn’t convince myself to get out of bed or go to school. All of the stress of visas, ever-changing inconsistent information from nearly every institution we’re connected to, frustration about how slowly language learning is progressing, and the details of upcoming travel, combined with not enough sleep just about crushed me. Today… Read More S’mores Can Lie if You Let Them
I wish that I had read Fluent Forever before I started learning Mongolian. Instead, I was 4 months into language school before I picked it up. So now I’m trying to change systems while I’m using them, when I could have set them up well from the beginning. I’m sharing what I’ve learned (and am… Read More 7 Tips for Learning a New Language
So, one day, I went to the corner store and they put my groceries in this bag: I was uncomfortable walking the 100 meters home. Because, as a white person in an Asian country, I HAD A SWASTIKA on my grocery bag. Except, it’s not really a swastika, at least not in Mongolia. Here it’s… Read More Context is Everything: When my grocery bag had a swastika on it.
In recent years I’ve become skeptical of Operation Christmas Child. Every year in November there are blog posts that circulate arguing that they’re a bad idea for the sender (who spends a lot of money feeling like they’re making a difference in the world but maybe their time and money would be better spent elsewhere),… Read More My Observations: Operation Christmas Child in Mongolia
I spent an hour today looking at Target.com and Amazon.com and putting things in my cart that I know I’m not going to buy anytime soon. They’re not things that I need; they’re just things that I miss. Like Brach’s conversation hearts. It’s the Sunday before Valentine’s and I have seen NOTHING related to the… Read More I Miss Things
