Horses, camels, cows/yaks, goats and sheep
By Charlie It’s a sad day for Mongolia. Not because thieves tried again last night to steal the power cable that serves our building, causing another day without power: Not because it was cold and windy today during our tank driving and gun shooting extravaganza: Not because we ran out of gas coming back from […]
Continue ReadingBy Rachel If you have a moment, check the Ulaanbaatar weather link in the side bar. We are looking forward to a beautiful week, with highs in the 50’s each day. Imagine a whole city of bears waking up from their long winter naps. And today all the bears on the street were eating ice […]
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By Rachel This Sunday’s hike was up a valley to the east of Ulaanbaatar. There were only four of us, but the weather was beautiful. The air was warm and the sky was clear. The stream running through the valley was still frozen, although you could hear the water running underneath. We saw the first […]
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By Rachel On Saturday morning Charlie and I went to the Foreign Language Student Concert at the Children’s Palace. This was a performance of the English, Japanese, Chinese and German students. It was structured around a folktale about a mean cat, but different scenes were in different languages, so it was sort of hard to […]
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By Charlie NOTE: This special blog entry is the first Five Snout article to come with musical accompaniment. Download this mp2 file and listen as you read. The music needs no introduction or explanation, but it does come with a story which you will read below. CLICK HERE FOR THE MUSIC Part 1: The Diplosluts […]
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by Rachel Those of you who like to hike need to put Ulaanbaatar on your maps. Forget Portland, or Salt Lake City. This is the place where you can take a taxi to the mountains. It takes about fifteen minutes and costs less than $4. That is exactly what we did this morning. Lucky for […]
Continue ReadingBy Rachel I was born on January 2, 1975. According to every Chinese restaurant placemat I’ve ever seen this means I was born in the Year of the Rabbit. I have lived my life accordingly. Meekly, quietly, curiously. I started to suspect a grave error, however, around the time of Tsaagan Sar, the lunar new […]
Continue ReadingBy Charlie I caught a taxi outside the Mongolian National Broadcasting building and headed down the hill to town. Along the way, the taxi driver tested my Mongolian, as many taxi drivers do. When he found out that today is my birthday, he said “Bayar horgii!” Congratulations! He stopped two blocks short of my destination […]
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By Charlie I guess it’s exciting to be turning 30 in Mongolia. But the fact that this is, after all, Mongolia brings some complications to party planning. Rachel and I have been thinking about this for months. First we thought that we’d spend a lot of money and turn the birthday celebration into an overnight […]
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by Rachel On Thursday we attended a very special event. Our friend Jimmy, here teaching journalism as a Knight fellow, had his portrait painted. The unveiling was held in Nasaa’s studio. The room was full of her other paintings, bottles of wine, French snacks, bankers, ambassadors, friends, and babies. It was a salon like only […]
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