Let me just say, I love working for Mongol Aspirations, one of the Bilingual Cambridge International Schools here in UB. Several times a year, they go out of their way to show us how much they appreciate our living on the other side of the world from our families to teach here. A couple of weeks ago, they did it again and took us on a tour of the 13th Century National Park.
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| The idiot foreigners like to sit in the back of the bus where every bump on the country roads sends us flying into the air and provides several huge laughs from the Mongolians when we scream and grunt. Oyuna, our Mongolian English teacher, was kind enough to sit back there with us. |
It's a nice stretch of beautiful Mongolian countryside that holds several attractions that show what life was like in the 13th century when Chinggis Khan was in power.
On the way, we visited the Chinggis Khan Equestrian Statue (I like calling it "Shiny Chinggis" when I'm by myself). It's the largest statue of a horse in the world and I think it's only fitting that Chinggis would be sitting on it.
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| I took this picture at another time I visited (a few summers ago, I think) |
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| The elevator was out (of course it was) and so we had to climb the stairs to the top (this statue is about 131 feet tall btw). The thing is, the staircase got narrower and narrower as we ascended. Not cool. |
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| This is Chinggis hugging us. (See why I call him "Shiny Chinggis"?) |
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| Eric "holding" the gigantic whip that represents the golden whip that Chinggis supposedly found on this site. |
Under the statue is a museum and the biggest Mongolian boot in the world. It's a size 4, 680 and took about 250 squares of cow leather to make.
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| Our group consisted of our principal and his son, headmasters and their sons, a few office staff and our school bus driver. A very fun group! |
In the museum we found a necklace with our favorite symbol on it - many of us wear a similar one around our necks. It's a symbol of a belief that was here in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Incredible.
We went to the King Palace and got to dress up and pretend we were Khans (Kings).
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| Eric and Beth Khan |
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| We caught the Mongolians laughing at us and were told that it looked like Eric had two wives. When I objected, they changed it to "a wife and a mother-in-law". Whaaaaat... |
We went to the Shaman Camp which centers around a tree that was struck by lightning. Those who follow Shamanism believe places where lightning strikes the earth are where the heavens meet the earth and therefore very special places.
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| The tree had a huge bird's nest in it and had many prayer scarves tied to and around it. |
It had several gers around it for Shamans from all kinds of different tribes.
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| This was inside one of the Shaman gers. It had several costumes for the Shaman to wear and drums. |
We got to visit an Educational Camp but unfortunately, it was dark by then and pictures really didn't turn out too well.
We also got to eat dinner in a ger and enjoyed some horhog (pronounced "horhuck") by candlelight.
We had a great time and felt very fortunate to be with such wonderful people in such a rich and beautiful country.
If you ever come to Mongolia, you should really visit this place!
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Mongolia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Mongolia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez