Wednesday in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

I thought that I was over the jet lag, but I am still not fully onto the local time schedule.  Such is life.


Wednesday morning, I had several Skype conversations and got caught up on my blog - all before 7:30 a.m. here - twelve hours difference from friends and family on the east coast, nine hours difference from friends in Phoenix, eight hours from Megan and Jon in Alaska.


I have discovered that the Epos Hotel serves nice breakfasts, but they are not traditional Mongolian breakfasts.  Wednesday included a small cheese omelet (with red and green peppers), a small salad (cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices and lettuce with a mild honey mustard like dressing), strawberries (in what appeared to their own juice and served in a cocktail glass), fresh made bread (with butter, jam and cheese), orange juice and coffee.  The bread has been different each day, and today's was especially good with jam.

Based on my bus riding lesson from Orgil Tuesday, I took the electric bus to Mongolia International University.  I need to learn more about the history of the school and why it is in the current condition.  Many buildings around it are under construction, while others are new and others are in need of repair or replacement.

From a distance, only the Mongolian sign is readily visible

As you get closer, you can see the circular English sign for Mongolia International University

Note both the construction of the closer building, but the newly built hotel just beyond

Here is a better view of the new Sunjin Grand Hotel - a four star property next to the campus

This is the building where the Language Education Institute is housed

The LEI (Language Education Institute) is on the second floor

Again today, I taught three 45 minute classes - there are three levels of ability, with the highest of the three first and lowest level last.  I am doing okay with the first two classes but struggling with the third.  There was less ad lib, as I had done more thinking about the classes and put some lists of words I wanted to use on the board before the students came.  I found that all of the students have cell phones and email (and Facebook and Skype).  So I gave them my email address - only one student emailed me so far.  I will have to encourage them more.

After classes, I took the electric bus back, but it took forever.  There was a traffic jam and we inched our way along Peace Avenue until we got past two intersections.  One was a major intersection with a police officer directing traffic.  That was not the problem.  The intersection before that had no lights and no one directing traffic - but it had a lot of traffic.  And people just pull out into the intersection and tried to get across all three lanes of traffic.  It is rather unreal - slow motion chaos and confusion.  In any event, I got back to the hotel and had to take a shower because I was hot and sweaty from the teaching and all the people - even though the high temperature was only 70 degrees.

Being a pedestrian and crossing a street requires situational awareness.  I see the locals just float across the busiest streets with no accidents.  Near the Sukhbaatar Square in the city center, there are marked crosswalks, with stoplights for cars and lights for pedestrians.  This is all well and good and seems to be respected and a safe way to get across Peace Avenue.  The only problem is sometimes there is a police officer directing traffic and trying to relieve the congestion - he sends cars through the intersection when pedestrians still have the right of way according to the lights for the pedestrians.  There is one pedestrian tunnel under Peace Avenue and that happens to be where I catch the electric bus.  When returning from LEI, I get off here on the north side of the street, take the tunnel under the street and then walk south one block to the Epos Hotel.

Mongolia has adopted the blue triangle signs which when included with a marked crosswalk means that pedestrians have the right of way and cars must yield.  In other countries, most drivers accept this and yield to pedestrians.  In Mongolia, a smaller percentage of drivers comply so you do need to watch the traffic.

At some locations, crosswalks have been painted but there are no blue pedestrian signs.  Other intersections have no markings and no signs.  Locals cross at all of these locations - and everywhere else in between.  The trick is to watch for an opening and start across.  Once across the lane(s) on your side, you may have to stand in the middle of the street to wait for an opening to get across the lane(s) going in the other direction.  The good news is that the traffic is generally so heavy, no car can go very fast and there seem to be no accidents.  I am amazed that in three days of what some may call kamikaze driving and walking, I have seen no accidents - not even a minor fender bender.

The Epos Hotel is painted purple, as is another nearby building.  Both are surrounded by a fence and has gates which can be closed at night.  I believe that is a holdover from the past.  As older buildings are replaced, I see expensive hotels, apartment complexes and office buildings without fences.  The pictures below show a little of the construction going on around Epos Hotel - all of it dwarfing the Epos and the other two older, low rise hotels in this area.

This was taken from the side yard of the hotel across the street. The Diplomat Apartments are the tall building on the right

As I zoomed in, you can get a better idea of how the new construction is dwarfing the older hotels like the Epos Hotel

I had planned to go visit the Mongolian National Museum in the afternoon, but I was tired and the only thing I accomplished was going out to the store to get some more bottled water and a sandwich.  I just took it easy for the rest of the day.