Oooo! I Gotta Tattoo!

My first. It's the Mongolian traditional script. The only script on earth that is both vertical and has connected letters in a word. It reads "illiaisan", my hip-hop alias.

When your tattoo man makes a house call you know you're in good hands!

About an hour in. Hurt a bit but no lasting pain. This surprised me.

Mom asked me to bring home an example of the traditional script. I don't think this is what she had in mind.

Bull Penis

I ate some bull penis...it was gross.

For my birthday my friends took me out to a Japanese Hot Pot restaurant. In case you didn't know...hot pot is awesome. You order a bowl of broth and various meats and veggies. They put the broth on a burner in front of you and you get to throw as much of whatever you order into the concoction. When you're satisfied with the results you pluck it out and eat it. Marvelous!

I ordered the spicy broth with seasame peanut sauce along with beef, lamb and bansch (little meat pocket dumpling things.) It was the straight scrumdiddly. Because it was my birfday I commanded Colin to order the bull penis. I don't think he liked it. Who would? It was all cartilage and sort of rubbery and crunchy at the same time...(wha?) Yeah. It was weird. Never again.

Broken Flash. Bad Photography

Birfdaze

Swine flu has come to Mongolia

Surgical masks have become ubiquitous on the streets of UB. The best part about this development is now they're becoming something of a fashion statement. We're starting to see colors other then white along with different patterns and decals. I've seen camouflage patterns, hello kitty masks and even the favorite icon of the west, the omnipresent pot leaf. Now if we could only get these commies to smoke the shit maybe we wouldn't have so much violence and public drunkeness.

I don't know if its swine flu or food poisoning or what but the last few weeks had me victim to something hellish. I had to take a weekend off of revelry simply to nurse myself. This lead to a bitter work week, compounded by a private student whose lesson begins at 9am every morning. Brutal.

Everybody knows that October is the best month of the year, and a great time to party. Having a birthday this month is a true pleasure and being able to share this fact with others is a blessing. During an outing with my new level three class I found that two of my students have October birthdays. That settled it! B-day party at my crib 10/17/09. BYO alcohol dammit!

The morning of I was not feeling well. I thought I was just tired so I simply slept in, but the later it got the worse I felt. I was cold and sweating, with an ache developing behind my eyes. Ibeprofen was not helping. Finally at about two I dragged myself out of bed. I had to prepare my spot for a party. This included house chores and furniture rearrangement. I stumbled towards the shower, feeling dizzy and hot. In the shower waves of chills raced through my body, I tilted my head back to let the water spill over my face. I don't know what happened next...I must've blacked out. I came to on the floor of the shower, I was flailing about, the thumping of my limbs against the tight enclosure sounded a far way off. I was confused and feral at this point, the lizard part of my brain in control now. I shambled out the shower, grabbed the towel off the rack and stumbled to the bed room. Out the window I caught a glimpse of the day outside. Everything was covered in a glaze of new snow. My hair is dripping all over me and my carpet. I wheeled back towards the bathroom. Inside I scrambled about for my towel, nowhere to be found. What have I done? I must've left it in the bedroom. Back to the bedroom and I look outside again. All the snow is gone. What the fuck is going on? I have never been so delirious in my life. Fear sets in. I must not fear, fear is the...yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going back to bed. If I don't feel better in a couple of hours I will cancel the party and find a way to the hospital. Damn.

Up in two hours and I'm feeling a lot better. I figure if I can move furniture without blacking out I can last a night of vodka. As I set about doing the necessary chores nightmares of being quarantined fade. The longer I keep at it the better I feel. The worst of it must be past. Funny to think I was so delirious only a few hours ago. It feels like a week has past since then.

The party went well. All the teachers showed up so there was a good mix of Native English Speakers and Mongolians.

I don't have any speakers so what was meant to be the dance room became just another talking room. With no furniture everybody just sat on the floor, but nobody seemed to care. Some people brought cupcakes, chocolates and smoked fish which was devoured with relish. I'm grateful because I don't have enough food to go around. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling to have so many at my place. Reminds me of my crazy party days in college when we had people over every week.

The two young ones, Brent and David, drank more than they could handle. This provided some amusement as the two of them crowded the toilet, taking turns vomiting and feeling shitty. The Mongolian teachers vacated the party leaving one room available. This became the pass out room for our intrepid drunkards. They eventually left in turn to nurse their wounds outside the social sector.

I love hosting a house party. The most amusing part always comes at the end when the stragglers make to leave. Jason and Undrakh took the honors this time. Late into the night (or early into the morning which is it?) they wrestled. Undrakh was completely unintelligible at this point. His English skills had deteriorated well past comprehensibility and his emotions seemed to follow suite as he rapidly fluctuated between huge smiles and shaking fists. Eventually I had to call a halt to this tomfoolery. I handed the man a coat which turned out to be Jason's. He backed out the door, shaking his fist threateningly and was gone. Jason followed soon after and that was it. So I thought. I only got about an hour of sleep in me when a pounding came on my door. Sure enough Undrakh was back, sans coat and shoe. Did he loose them, or did someone steal them? Regardless the man was freezing so I let him pass out on my couch. Awesomeness. I was totally worthless for the rest of the weekend.

Blood of Chinngis

After the first few months of my stay in Mongolia I complained to my brother David that I was finding the social scene here difficult due to every Mongolian's complete lack of taste when it comes to music. Bless his heart, my brother told me to stick to it because something nice would turn up. And sure enough, he was right. I have found a band worthy of my attention, the one AltanUrag. It means, roughly, the bloodline of the Khaan, Chinngis.

These guys rule! They play traditional Mongolian instruments with traditional throat singing and whistling along with a western drum kit, all amplified and rendered in a hard rock style. Its dark and its ill and I love it! Check them out at their MySpace page. Notice the alien-head fiddle!

Chicken Dinner

What's it called when you have a party and the guest of honor doesn't show up?

I don't have an oven at home. This means I can never bake anything, which is a pity because I want to make my own chicken. I learned this sweet style which involves standing a whole chicken on its legs (or stubs as the case may be) by inserting a mason jar in its butt. The jar can have a bit of liquid such as beer or cooking wine along with slices of apple or lemons or garlic or spices or whatever the hell you want in it. During the baking process the concoction within the jar steams up and fumigates the beast with its essences making for a delectable feast. One more problem, I can't for the life of me find a mason jar in this bloody town.

I've been asking my teacher friend Joy if I can use her oven for a roasting. I gave her no specific time, waiting to find a proper bird and said jar. However another teacher friend, Jeff, finished his contracts and it was deemed appropriate to throw a party on his behalf. So we went forward with plans to have a roast feast. I scrambled to find an alternative recipe as the jars could not be located. We organized the food, the guest list, the time and date. I got to Joys place early to prepare. Everything was in order. No Jeff.

What a jerk. I still haven't heard from him, probably never will now. Oh well. His loss, not mine. We had a delightful dinner without him. New teachers Dave and Brent joined us at Joy and Eric's stately apartment, seriously one of the nicest homes I've ever been in here or otherwise. It was very hospitable. We sprawled on luxuriant leather couches and watched The Dark Knight on a very wide flatscreen TV. Afterwards we had our dinner at what felt like a corporate boardroom of a dinner table. I felt very powerful.

I took some chicken home and have been eating leftovers since. Tastes a bit like thanksgiving. Thanx Joy and Eric, you did it up right. Screw you Jeff.

Monastery Day!

Ladies Games

Feeds a Thousand!

Go Team!

Social Call

After a night of drinks with my new level 3 class I dragged my ass back to school on Saturday for a social call, an outing with the staff presumably to strengthen bonds. I regret showing up on time as I'm well aware by now that punctuality is not a value in Mongolian culture. An hour of rough road on the bus was made worse by my ill decision to sit in the wheel seat. Idiot!

There were only four of us whities on the bus and we were challenged by our rival teachers to a singing duel. I did my best with my usual repertoire Ramblin' Man, House Of The Rising Sun, and of course my favorite, Bankrobber but I didn't stand a chance against the chorus of Mongolian folk songs that just kept coming. Their team sounded so nice with the high female voices blending expertly with the deep male voices.

At the gates of the park we were stopped and made to pay an entrance fee, compounded by the fact that myself and others neglected to bring our work visas. I don't normally carry my work visa for the same reason that I don't normally carry my passport, I want that shit safe from pickpockets. I think the overall extra price amounted to no more then a few hundred Tuugruugks (that's meant to be a phonetic spelling as the official English spelling is horribly inadequate. And for the record: 100Tgs is roughly 7 cents) but our fellows argued on our behalf for a good ten minutes. Nice work team. I know you'll never let me down.

Inside we found the park overcrowded with other school tour groups. Mostly high school by the looks of them. We rented a geir and proceeded with the ceremonial round of vodka shots. It is very disrespectful to pass up a proffered vodka shot. Not one to defame my country (yeah right) I acquiesced (actually I just wanted to use that word. Just listen to yerself as you read it: acquiesce. Don't you feel smarter already? Courtesy of yours truly.) This was followed by a potluck of sorts as all the Mongolians busted out containers of traditional food, Huushure, Buudz, Tsueven and the like. I felt mildly embarrassed as I had failed to bring anything to share. However this didn't keep me from digging in.

By and by a group of us hiked off to the old monastery. First we entered a small museum, which featured some horribly taxidermied animals and weird art. There were landscapes made of colored sand glued to paper and images of birds and fish made with feathers pasted to paper. Very strange. We then hiked up to the remains of the monastery. A victim of the soviet purges, it consisted of a ruined stone structure and a refurbished wood structure acting as some kind of museum. Inside were a number of Buddhist shrines with some sweet statues and tapestries. All and all pretty neat but I preferred the hike to the destination.

After our return to the geir I was bowled over by a sudden case of lethargy. A large, sun-drenched rock called my name and I obediently collapsed into its stoney depths. Mmmmm. Nap time, the best part of any day.

Upon our return trip the full moon breached the horizon over the hills, all fat and white in the dying embers of the sun. Crimson rays spilled over the land creating an idyllic scene. I wish he hadn't been in a moving bus. It would have made for some killer photography. My vain attempts at poetry will have to suffice.