Friday 24 July 09

We have had a few quiet days in Ulaan Baatar catching up with people, shopping, internet and ourselves.We have sorted out the taxis , international phone cards and banks now so are feeling right at home.

It has been good catching up with Ariun as well as several other people who were also at the retreat in Nepal back in 2004.We are also meeting lots of lovely new people.

We are also working our way through the shopping we had planned for Mongolia.Shops are not as obvious as they are at home or in Korea - this is probably due to the harsh weather in winter and the communist influence into the 1990s.There are no big glass shop fronts with glittering displays to tempt you in.The script used here is Cyrillic so shop signs are not obvious with a glance.I am sorting out some of the letters but it is like breaking a code with much reference back to the language pages at the back of my Lonely Planet Mongolia guide.

Food is becoming less intrusive in our day - Zoe has found a café she likes to eat at and it has wifi internet.It also helps that I am able to cook at the apartment.We have stocked up on tomato sauce, mustard, honey and peanut butter for our trip to the countryside.

We have made contact with the local tour provider for our Yak Trek so that is under control.The group will consist of 11 people, a guide and a cook.They assure us that the cook is adept at both western and Mongolian cooking but we will still take our collection of condiments so that Zoe can 'modify to taste'. We join out Yak Trek group on Sunday evening for the next phase of our adventure.