Another Day in UB

  EUREKA. I finally have a local sim card for my phone. Now I just hope it works where we are going. It was only 500m from the hotel and is the Mongolian internet provider so I am hoping it is good. We even found a coffee shop with real coffee. Life is bloody good at the moment. After the coffee and a look around the mall we made our way to Sukhbaatar Square. This is where they are having the world championship 3 a side basketball. There was also an international food festival happening although they were mostly closed. Once again, a lot of people in traditional clothes and military uniforms. I am yet to find out what it is about.
Military Men with their medals on display

Making our way to the art gallery near the hotel, we had to negotiate the traffic that has no rules. When we arrived at the gallery we found it was closed on Saturday and Sunday in Summer. We should have looked yesterday when we had the chance! Now that I have internet access I can find other places of interest. We found the Zanabazar Museum of fine arts. This had a lot of Buddhist art in there including original pieces and once again photography was prohibited. We spent about an hour in there  before making our way back to the hotel.
The Zanazabar Museum of Fine Arts

The last time I used a different sim card in my phone was in Europe and Google took us on a wild goose chase in Vienna, so I decided to use my intuition to make our way back. I almost got it right except for a block or two out of the way. With google back in hand I navigated our way back and got back to the room around 1PM, to find our room had not been serviced yet. Not to worry, we have all afternoon to rest up and tonight we have the welcome dinner and folk dancing demonstration. Sounds like fun!
Nice choice of car

We finally met our ride group. Two have already headed home after arriving and having some kind of allergic reaction. Once again I am the only guy in the group so I guess I will be spending a lot of time with the wranglers. Our guide for the walking tour is Dre. He led us through some parts of UB that we haven't been to yet. There is a lot happening at this time of the year. All the maintenance, road work and construction is done in the warmer months and for good reason. UB is the coldest capital city in the world with temperatures getting as low as -42C. That is seriously cold and I wouldn't want to be out in it. we wandered through some parks and eventually ended up at the theatre for the cultural music and dance display. I started to video and got a tap on the shoulder  telling me no. the whole row in front of me had their cameras out the whole time videoing it so I am damned if I can figure it out. I did sneak a couple of photos though so you will be getting them.
Traditional Dancers

Singers and Dancers



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