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George's World Travels
Hi,
We went to the Opera last night, for you opera fans out there it was Don Giovanni. Hmmm I have to say, I mylself am not an opera person! Some of it was ok and it was interesting to see a practically all Mongolian cast but yeh a lot of it was just solos or like two people on stage singing for what seemed like forever. I almost fell asleep in those parts. When there was more people on stage and stuff actaully happening it was ok, as I could kinda understand what was going on.
After that Dave, Kent and I went for dinner at a Thai restaurant close to the Square. Was gorgeous!! My host mothers food is pretty good, all very healthy, soups, rice, vegetables, fruit (light years apart from what other volunteers get) but god my dinner there was sooo lovely! I had ummm noodles with tofu, tomato, coliflower and some other vegetables.Was not too spicy either, just right. Will have to go there again. Also was a MASSIVE serving, so the guys had some of mine too. And so cheap! Only came to 3,000 Togrogs which is like 1.50p!
Mongolian prices are great! I'm already getting in the Mongolian mind frame though of saying some things are way overpriced. Like at the opera I got two small packets of pringles for us and it came to 3,000 T. I was quite angry about it! Or like for taxis if someones trying to rip you off, charging more than they should, eventhough its still amazing value compared to the UK.
Oh yeh, taxis. Its the same here as in Russia. Every car is a taxi really! Just put your arm out at the side of the road and wait till someone pulls over. Rides pretty much come to 1,000 T each, so 50p. Very good! We usually get offical taxis in the evening though.
I still havrnt got used to this mad traffic yet? Have I mentioned that yet? Basically there are no lanes. No traffic lights, except for a few in the town centre, however whether drivers actually take notice of theseis an entirely different matter! nd yes, no pedestrain crossings. Is hell trying to get across the street!
New volunteers arriving tomorrow from UK.
I talked to Tugi tonight about doing an extended weekend trip to the Gobi in April. Ive given him a few places I really wanna visit, like the massive sand dunes and the big national park down there that is home to loads of different animals from gizelles to snow leopards! Also has a valley full of ice, all year round and other amazing landscapes. Oh yeh and a place called 'flaming cliffs' where theres a massive amount of dinosaur bones. The Gobi is very famous for amount of amazing fossils found there. Theres supposed to be a great exhibit of some of them in the Natural History Museum in town, which we're going to soon.
I also really want to go and see the wild horses here, 'rakhi'. They became extinct in Mongolia a while back due to excessive hunting. But through breeding programmes abroad theyve been reintroduced into national parks in Mongolia. I really wanna see one. They are supposed to have zebra striped legs and look pretty different to regular horses.
So, yeh Tugi said he'd get back to me on all that :)
Oh you may be wondering about the photo for this postcard! One evening we went to a German themed place for some drinks, 'brau haus'. After a Mongolian woman sang a few early 90s pop songs on stage, there was Bingo! All the tables except ours was playing! Seems a popular game here, strange!
Bye,
xxx
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