Thursday in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Today has been a very interesting day.  At breakfast this morning here at Epos Hotel, there were two American gentlemen eating.  I said hello and we began chatting.  They are the President and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN - about 50 miles north of Knoxville where my son and daughter-in-law got their undergraduate degrees.  LMU was founded in honor of President Abraham Lincoln.  LMU has joint programs with universities in China (where they had just been for four days), here in Ulaanbaatar and in Japan (where they are headed to on Sunday).  We had a nice chat and I anticipate seeing them at breakfast for the next several days.  They asked if I would be interested in coming to visit LMU and be a guest lecturer there.  I will have to follow up on that invitation.

As with the last several days, I took the bus to LEI.  I am not sure why the local HFH people suggested I not take the bus.  I understand about the need to be aware of one's surroundings, especially being on the lookout for pickpockets.  But those are normal risks of any city.  I have not felt at risk since I have been here.  Of course, I have not been out after dark and I have avoided any areas that looked risky to me.  As far as navigating my way to the school, I just take the bus east on Peace Avenue until I see this monument - that is across the street from MIU.  I do not know the significance of the monument, but with the planes on top I am guessing that it is from the Soviet era.

Here is a photo of the staff bulletin board at the LEI.  The Director, Richard Porowski, is the only male and the only native English speaker.  Since I get to the LEI about 30 - 45 minutes before the first class, each day one or more of the teachers will ask me to verify their pronunciation of names and/or words in the books they are using in class.

For a change today, I took pictures in each of my three classes.  To get the students to write, I told them to send me an email and that I would send them the pictures of their class.  So far, only one student has sent me an email and one has sent me a request on Skype.  MIU also has a high school, so the students range in age from 13 to 30.

My first class is the most advanced level of English.

Orgil and Momin

Here are the students from my second class. They have a somewhat lower level with their English skills.

And here is the third class with the lowest level of English skills.

After class, while waiting at the bus stop to return to my hotel, I saw three college age students who were clearly not Mongolian.  I said hello and they responded in English.  It turns out that they are from Poland where they are students at Schlonska Polyteknika University (Silesia Polytechnic University) in Gliwice, Poland - which is where I stayed with Habitat for Humanity in 2011.  They spoke no Mongolian, but did speak both Polish and English.  They had been told which buses to take - but all four routes were the more expensive 400 MNT diesel buses, rather than the less expensive 200 MNT electric bus which I ride.  So they rode with me and we chatted on the ride.  They were surprised that I knew about places in their town.  But what surprised me, was that Since May 3, they had ridden their bikes from Gliwice, Poland - across Poland, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and into Mongolia and will ride on to Beijing.  From there, they will fly back to Poland.

After changing into shorts, I went back out and had a sandwich and a Diet Coke at a fast food joint called Berlin Burger - it cost 4,050 MNT (less than $3.00).  I then strolled across the city center.

Here is a statue of Marco Polo in front of the Intel building

A theater on the east side of Sukhbaatar Square

One of the art museums and a sign advertising Nadaam celebrations (Beautiful Mongolia)

An office building on the west side of Sukhbaatar Square

 My destination was the Mongolian National Museum.

Many interesting exhibits inside tracing the history of Mongolia from the first appearance of humans up to the present.  There have been (and continue to be) many archeological digs in Mongolia where they have found evidence of humans going back thousands of years.  There is much about the different peoples that have lived in Mongolia - Chinese, Turks, Uighurs.  And of course, much about Chinggis Khaan (Gengis Khan).  There is much history that I never learned about.  Classes I took in high school and at UMass only talked about the Roman Empire (a little about Greece and Phoenicia) - they went by names like "The History of Western Civilization."  As I went through the museum, I realized just how little history I know.  Chinggis Khaan stopped the fighting among the various groups during his reign and his empire went from Korea to Bulgaria - the largest ever.  They tolerated many religions.  After him, things disintegrated and various peoples again lived in and ruled Mongolia.  Buddhism came here in the 1600s.  The country became independent in the early 1900s.  After WWII, they became part of the Soviet Union and suffered some pretty awful times.  When the Soviet Union disintegrated, they had many peaceful protests and fairly quickly adopted a democratic form of government and moved fairly rapidly from all government owned property and centrally managed economy to capitalism.

On my way out of the museum, I noticed this interesting large sculpture - "No to death penalty."

As I walked south from the museum, Sukhbaatar Square was to my left.  Ahead was the new downtown area.  The odd shaped building in the middle is the Blue Sky Hotel - you can see buildings still under construction on either side of it.

 Capitalism has clearly come here - check out the Broadway Restaurant.

While it is not Wall Street, here is the Mongolian Stock Exchange.

Ulaanbaatar is known for the night life (don't you just love capitalism).  On the way back to my hotel, I happened to see the River Sounds Live Music Club.

Here is a close of that green sign - check out the different activities each night (I won't be going, as most of that is past my bed time).

While I ate at the hotel, I did try some of their mutton with rice, potato wedges and salad.  It was a nice meal, especially with not having to leave the hotel.