This morning I slept in just a bit, as it's been a busy week. I woke up around 11:30 and saw it was a beautiful day! Catriona, another house guest, was going to head up to Zaizan (sp?), a nearby monument on top of a hill, built in the 70's dedicated to Russian victory in WWII. I decided to go for the journey as well. We were going to catch a bus but it really wasn't that far away, maybe 5km or so, so we decided to walk instead. On the way out of the city, we...

This morning I headed straight over to SOS Medica after a quick free breakfast at the UB deli. The free breakfasts are a new thing here and are included in the 8,000 tugrik price ($8 Australian). It's usually just eggs, bread, and potato pieces, though sometimes they get the concept confused and end up serving crisps (American chips). The taxi this morning was uneventful, fortunately, though they seem to be terrible at math. For example, somehow they want ...

This morning I'm going to be working on my Mongolia presentation and longitudinal task for a few hours before Luke gets into UB. Luke is one of the guys that goes dirt bike riding when I'm in Adelaide, and is a friend of my brother-in-law, Adam. He works at some of the mine sites in Mongolia for 2 months at a time then gets a month off. He's just now finishing up two months here and is on his way to Egypt for two weeks before heading back to Adelaide, then bac...

This morning is another beautiful day. I went straight back to the Buddhist cafe to try to get some work done. However, some lady with three kids running around recognised me from the day before and thought it was perfectly ok to interrupt my work and start up a conversation about holistic medicine. She was one of those somewhat "out there" ladies, but also very conservative and "spiritual" in her demeanor. Her attire wasn't bizarre, as yo...

Today I woke up early and headed back to the local cafe to do some work on my research project, the one on interferon treatment for sarcoidosis. I meandered from one cafe to the next because I tend to get bored if I'm in one place for too long. I also ducked into a souvenir shop nearby to look for some gifts to bring back and send to people. The man running the shop was completely drunk at 10 am. Wow! Anyway, I let him continue on his merry way and didn't bu...