Horse guitars, gers, and two humped camels Part 1

"Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and and sunshine are hard to beat"

- Laura Ingalls Wilder

     My vacation finally arrived! Lindsey and I arrived in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia last week Saturday.  We had a two-hour layover in Beijing.  We couldn't contain our squealing on the flight from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar.  It was a clear day so the stunning scenery went from lush green mountains, to desolate desert, and slowly tiny white dots started popping up.  And that is is the point when the squealing commenced because gers (yurts) are real people!!!!!  

These cards were purchased at the airport in Milwaukee and Toronto and have now been to 4 continents!

Our first night and day we stayed in UB and saw the city sites.  This is the Mongolian parliament building.  That man sitting in the giant chair is Chinggis Khaan.  He lived in the 12th century and conquered most of Asia and Europe.

We also toured a temple, history museum, and the former palace of the Mongolian king.

We were very excited to eat all the beef! In Korea meat is very expensive so I don't eat a lot of it.  On the first day for lunch we at our first khuushuur (meat wrapped and fried in dough) and some grilled beef.  All of it was amazingly delicious!

Our second day, we went out to the countryside to visit the monument to Chinggis Khaan.  It is a very impressive 130 ft tall statue.  

A short distance from the Chinggis Khaan statue is a statue of his mother.  She is highly regarded for how she raised her son to become the leader he was.

After the statue we continued on to see more of the stunning scenery.  This rock is camel rock.

We had three things on our wish list of what we wanted to do on this trip.  Our first was horse riding.  We got lovely photos of Lindsey, unfortunately the best one the guide took of me has a branch over my face.

The second thing on our bucket list was to spend a night in a ger! We were able to cross this off our list the second night.  The ger camps are just like staying at a camp ground with cabins.  They even serve food and milk tea!

Lindsey teaches a class called musical English at work.  In her class, she teaches acting and singing through Disney movies.  The current movie they are working through is Mulan.  She convinced the kids that she met Shan Yu's eagle in Mongolia.

I still cannot get over how stunning the landscape is.  After living in Korea with its smog, noise, and sheer amount of people; it was amazing to wake up and have the only sounds being birds and the occasional moo from a wandering yak.

My aunt's sister and nephew were so kind to show us around their amazing home!

Golden eagles are traditionally used for hunting foxes from horseback.  At the different tourist spots we stopped at there were men with the eagles for photos.

We visited a turtle rock and a camel rock, but no one mentioned the pig rock.  Do you see it? Its like a pig taking a nap on a pile of mud!

This is turtle rock.

We climbed up the turtle rock and had to slip through this tiny hole.  I'm obviously model material.

I love how brightly painted the inside of the ger is.

The yaks might be my favorite animal we saw.  They just look so incredibly fluffy!

Every single direction that you looked seemed like it was out of a national geographic documentary.  Both Lindsey and I had colds while traveling.  It was almost like our bodies were trying to get rid of all the nasty gunk from our lungs we have picked up in Korea.