I was jolted awake by my alarm this morning at 5am and proceeded to make sure my small group was up and ready to get off the train at Ulaanbaatar. We arrive at 6am and were collected by someone from Tucan's local operator. We left the station and waited around for about twenty minutes in the cold because one of the cars had not shown up yet. Sigh, not this crap again. Why can't these guys get anything right?

We were taken to the hotel, the right one this time and I proceeded to try to check my group in. Only one room was ready to we all had to sit around after our long journey waiting for the single maid to go around and clean all the rooms one by one. At least we weren't being collected for the city tour until 10:30am.

I finally went up to my room, which was a twin, I had been told I would have to change later when a single room became available as did Paul. I had a much needed shower and then an hour power nap and then went downstairs to meet the group and grab the guide, who seemed a bit spaced out and didn't recognize me even though I was wearing my Tucan Travel shirt.

The guide while better than the last one we had was still far too quiet and a few people complained that they couldn't hear her. We went around to all the monuments and visited the state department store so people could change money. While we were at the Russian monument I asked her how much longer the tour went for as people were starting to want lunch and she said she didn't know, you don't know how long your own tour goes for? I thought to myself. She said she was going to take them to the Mongolian history museum, which could take up to two hours. I really didn't have time to go along myself, as the tour company had not given my train tickets to the guide and I now had to go and collect them in person. I told the group the departure time for the Ger camp tomorrow and proceeded to head off to the tour company. When I arrived it had a closed sign on the door, but I went in anyway.

The lone employee in there seemed to recognize the significance of someone from Tucan Travel being in the office and made a phone call and insisted I take it. It was the boss of the company who said there was no one there who could give me my train tickets and to come back in an hour. Really? After you were supposed to have arranged for the transfer to hand them to me at the station this morning? Sigh.

Luckily for them I did have other things to do, like looking for WiFi so I could check my email. I went and had an ice coffee (no more than coffee in milk with a few ice cubes) at nearby café Amsterdam. Nothing significant to report there. After that I went for a poke around the huge state department store an used their far superior WiFi, before heading back to the tour company and being handed my train tickets.

After that mess, I was quite worn out, so I went back to the hotel where I changed Paul's room over for him and was then informed that I didn't have to change. Wonderful, I thought, first bit of good news all day. This room had a nice big bath, so I'm going to sit in it and work out the kinks from the train and watch some TV on my laptop. I did that for about an hour and then went back out again in search of balloons. Yes that's right, I went looking for balloons in Ulaabaatar. Did I find them? Of course not, but I had a fun two hours of looking. I ended up with a birthday cake, as it is Colin's birthday today and some of us are going out to celebrate tonight.

I took the cake back to the hotel, in the rain at that point and hid it in my room and went and knocked on Colin and Andy's door to see what was going on. Dinner at 7pm and then the pub. I went back to my room to get changed and then headed out with the guys for dinner. We had dinner at a nice Mongolian place and I really should not have ordered the spaghetti, definitely should have had the beef brisket which Colin had. Paul joined us for a drink, before we headed back to the hotel via a pretty deserted bar in which we had to explain to the waitress that I didn't want the entire bottle of Jack Daniels, only a small shot and some coke. I got a large shot and some coke, think I like this place.

We stayed at the bar for about an hour before heading back to the hotel, which has its own private karaoke rooms, which I wanted to check out. I went down stairs and it was only 30000 Tug for the room for one hour (about $20.00) I said, let's do it. The room was set up just like a lounge room and you got a book of songs, most of which were in Korean to choose from. They did have small English section, many of the songs were hard rock and heavy metal, this is going to be awesome I thought., especially when Andy asked if they had any Oasis.

Oasis did end up being the flavor of the evening, I thing Andy and I did Wonderwall, Rock n Roll Star and Morning Glory and I did Super Sonic solo. Colin did a bit of Blink 182 and Colin and I did Self Esteem, by Offspring which sounded pretty cool. While Andy was having a go I excused myself saying I needed to go up to my room for a bit, of course I was going to get the cake and my pocket knife.

I returned a few minutes later with a cake and Andy and I grabbed the microphones and sang happy birthday, then we all dug into the cake which was surprisingly good. Colin's face when I walked in with it was priceless, clearly he hadn't been expecting anything. He did comment that this was his most random birthday ever. Just what I wanted to hear. We stayed in the room for about three hours and I sang until I almost completely lost my voice, I really don't know why I keep trying to do Linkin Park, I know my vocal chords can't take it! We ended up calling it a night at about 1am, if I didn't have the life I have, I would definitely say, most fun I've had in a long time.