Free time in Ulaan Baatar

Sunday, August 15, 2010
(Written on the day.)

On the train again. About to depart UB for Russia. I've got major catching up to do - seems to be the trend for this part of the trip, especially since I haven't had much internet time on my netbook. I'm looking at the moon out of the closed train window, almost half-crescent, orange-yellow. Nature is beautiful.
Today was our free day to explore Ulaan Baatar. We began with breakfast at 9am before putting the bags in the hotel storage room. I was up at 7:45am so I could take a hot shower in room 307.
Ahh, the air con just came on in the cabin. So much better. These berths seem slightly smaller than the first train and the windows don't open because there is air con, however, it is controlled by the attendants (comment from August 18, we all came to find out that its actually better to have windows since the air con didn't seem to stay on for very long). Anyway, back to today. I left the hotel with Stuart, Shelley, Kristy and Steph but Liz, Susie, Bruce, Wayne and Fi were on the same path to the Gandan Khild monastery. We had a bit of difficulty navigating, we definitely ended up in a non-touristy part of town (although UB isn't very touristy) and saw some locals playing pool on the street. We made it eventually. The monastery was built in 1838 and served as home to the 13th Dalai Lama. It currently has over 900 monks in residence. There were about ten different buildings, and in a couple monks were praying. At one, they were clashing symbols, banging a gong and chanting. The main temple Migiid Janraisig Sum has a 26.5 meter tall gilded Buddha (no pictures unless you pay an extra $10).
From the monastery, we walked to the center of town for some shopping the cashmere stores before lunch at Cafe Amsterdam. We ended up at the cafe for 1.5 hours because there was wireless internet and Kristy and Steph were anxious to make the first post on their blog. They were ecstatic when the post went live. I had the pleasure of skyping with my parents and Wanda and Steve.
I want to go to sleep now, as its almost 11pm, so I'm going to jot notes for the rest of today.

- Money exchange - Stuart and I couldn't find places that had rubles. We found one bank that claimed to have rubles so we waited 30 minutes in line to find out they had 1,700 in small bills and one 5,000 note (worth about $165). Annoying. Eventually we found an excellent exchange place (turns out its the one Anna uses).

- Souvenir shop - nothing interesting and no rubles

- Sukhbaatar square ad National Museum of Mongolian History (a museum with lots of pottery pieces and some interesting facts about Mongolian history).
 
- Quick sop at the hotel, move currency exchange, grocery shopping (not as good as the first store), pizza dinner at Venezia, quick dash to the hotel where Nemo met us to take us to the train station.  Gathered at 7:30pm, arrived at station by 8:15pm with almost an hour.
 
- Have now been moving for almost two hours.  Arrive at Mongolian border at 5am but get to sleep until 8am.  Good night.