Mongolia Trip

Today was the first time I overslept. Only by fifteen minutes though. Anyway breakfast was about five minutes for me before we went to the home stay orientation. The orientation was about two and a half hours. I was getting super antsy. And I didn’t have ants in my pants. Anyway, they told us the conditions for the home stay. It seems very exciting but I’m also very nervous. They told us who our families are. Mine has a twelve year old daughter. It’s also the farthest camp from everyone’s. 22 kilometers. So far. After the super long orientation, we went to lunch. This time we went to a Chinese restaurant. It was super good and reminded me of home. Everyone liked it too. There was mapo tofu and I’m gonna be honest, I may of drooled a bit. But to be fair I’m gonna be eating meat and milk. Yummy. After lunch we went shopping! We went to the mall. It wasn’t very well air conditioned but it had a lot of shops. I was super excited to get a bunch of souvenirs/presents for everyone. Unfortunat...

Today we woke up early and I noticed my back was still hurting. It’s been hurting for a few days, I think it’s because I’m getting old. Just had my birthday, so it’s expected. We had a long drive to the airport where we got on the teenie tiny plane. The flight was pretty short and decently comfortable. After the flight was an hour bus ride to the hotel. After we got to the hotel, we walked to the food court. It was a significant disappointment. Only one restaurant of the four was open. Some of us decided to go to KFC. Second time in my life and in Asia again. It was decently good. Then I got some sweatpants for only $20! Which I think is cheap for girl clothes. After lunch we went back to chill in the hotel. Dinner was pizza. Night time was immediately falling asleep. Tiny plane

Today was supposed to be our chill do whatever day but it didn’t exactly go as planned. I woke up to seagulls yelling and yaks snorting/farting right outside our yurt. Great alarm. It was really chilly so I just tacoed till breakfast. Breakfast was buffet style and really good. There was ramen out and Nutella that was also white chocolate. Yummy. I was chilling with my yummy breakfast, everything’s rainbows and unicorns except the weather, when Leah tells us we have to leave this afternoon because we don’t want to be flooded in. Total rainbow and unicorn killer.  After breakfast I went to go pack then, Annabelle, Nick, Nathalie, Madison and I went for a walk along the lake. It was kinda cold but relaxing just to be in the nature. I skipped some rocks and got my high score of six. Boom shakalaka. Then all my other rocks face planted. But I got six so my life is complete. The walk was pretty short since we all had buttleg injuries from riding for so long. After the walk, I shot some...

Today was our travel day. So we had to ride horses all the way to Blue Pearl camp. The first part of the five hour ride was okay. My horse, Pumpkin, was dark brown and small. One of the guides held the leash for Pumpkin and led me. It was really rainy and cloudy. The clouds moved lower and lower throughout the trek. For the first hour or so I was just kinda sitting on my horse trying not to fall asleep. You’d think that I would be super energetic but here’s the issue: everyone by then had been able to ride by themselves without a guide holding onto their horse, but I was one of the last four people to have to be guided. So I wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t have to guide Pumpkin or make sure he was goin g a good speed, I just sat there getting really sore thighs. It was like riding an uncomfortable pooping bus named Pumpkin. No bueno. Mariyama was riding a horse I like to call Cooper, because it’s kinda chubby but medium size and every time it ran, it farted with each step. It’s liter...

Last night was a rough night; I couldn’t seem to get comfortable. Anyway after the rough night and breakfast, which was warm milk and granola, we went to the English class for the Mongolian students. Not all of them were there today because of Nadaam which is also today. For the ones who were there, they rotated around to different groups of two Americans. Me and Annabelle were a group. We would pick a post it that had a topic and talk to the Mongolians about it. Hungra, one of the students, liked to draw and play basketball. She has super long hair. Way longer than mine. My hair is average length in Mongolia. Anyway another student, Unjee, was 14 and very sweet. She was about up to my shoulder. Another girl, the one who was the good singer, told us about her boyfriend. They had celebrated valentines together and he got her a lot of chocolate. I also learned how to write my name in Mongolian. It was so pretty when they did it. Mine was kinda like my Chinese handwriting. No bueno. After...

So today is the Nadaam festival. It’s a big deal in Mongolia. They do wrestling, archery, horse races and sell a bunch of stuff. At breakfast all the guys came in with their fancy traditional Mongolian shirts while none of the girls wore theirs incase it got dirty. After breakfast all the girls went to get ready. I did all their braids the night before so their hair would be wavy for the festival. I just put on my dress and let down my hair. Boom ready. My dress is yellow and fitted. Unfortunately because it was fitted I couldn’t lift my legs or man spread or wear shorts under them. It was pretty though and most of the girls wore matching dresses but different colors. Once we were all ready we drove to the festival. We got there around 10am. We had an hour to kill before the opening ceremony so we explored. They had a lot of things later out on mats to buy. Each little vendor had most of the same things. I don’t know how they expect to make a lot of money if they all have the same thin...

We kinda got to sleep in today since breakfast was at 8:30. It was a weird tasting hot dog so I just had some tea. For the morning we were going to an English class with the Mongolians. We were in three groups and made posters with drawings representing American and Mongolian holidays. My group did Valentines Day and 4th of July. I decorated the Valentines side. It looked like a two year old did. Not my best piece. Then we showed them where we were from on a map. The Mongolians are very nice and smiley. One of them, Joy, is kinda like their designated translator since she speaks the best English. After the class we went to the gym. While there I taught Joy and one other girl how to make friendship bracelets. It was a little hard to teach them. Mostly because I had to show them and couldn’t explain the patter or really any specifics. They both kinda got it by the time we had to go to lunch. After lunch we had some free time before we went to paint the classroom. I just read. I haven’t...