I'm here!

From DFW to LAX to PEK to ULN, I arrived on time (for once) in Ulaanbaatar Monday morning. Twenty-two hours of flight time and a red-eye from Los Angeles to Beijing meant the jet-lag crept up on me halfway into our program’s first academic lecture on Sino-Mongolian relations, but I’ve managed to adjust to the 12 hour time difference pretty quickly. The LAX-PEK flight was twelve and some hours. A few rounds of single serving Air Chinese, half of a This American Life podcast, and nine hours of sleep made the flight go by quickly. I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me, which made for a relatively comfortable economy ride. I met Sam, Kara and Britt, three of my five peers, in Beijing at the boarding gate for ULN. We cracked the ice over some tea and edimame one of the terminal’s cafes then scurried off to catch our last leg.

The descent into ULN was surreal. The juxtaposition of gers (yurts), energy stacks, open fields and city bustle was like nothing I’ve ever seen. When we first touched down I saw the airport’s terminal with the city’s skyline in the background and by the time the plane had pulled its brakes there was nothing but open land. One of our program directors picked us up and drove us to the Anuujin Hotel where we’ll be staying for our orientation week. Driving through the exit gates at the airport a herd of goats and several horses crossed in front of our black land rover escort, which I quickly became desensitized to. The whole drive into UB was a bizarre juxtaposition of rural and urban landscapes. In America, the two are separated by a fence or a distinguished border. In the countryside and the outskirts of UB there are no fences.

My first Mongolian dinner dish was unee hel or cattle tongue. Not much flavor but it tastes a little like roast beef and the texture is very similar. In Mongolian, hel also means language. Mongol hel is Mongolian, anglo hel is English. My reading has significantly improved since I’ve arrived, acting like a four year old reading every word I see. I’m starting to pick up speaking too and we start our first formal language class today. I’m really determined to become proficient by the time I leave. I didn’t have much background before I left, but I’m determined.