So many a's

June 9, 2010

Today I left Beijing for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. I had to get up early and get a taxi to the airport. And apparently AirChina only allows each person to have 20kg (~44 lbs) of stuff. Well excuse me AirChina but United let me have two bags at 50 lbs each. So yea I am an overpacker and have a lot of things and I used my limit. So Qinghui checked one of my bags so they wouldn't charge me. But I have gonna have to pay on my way back to China. Again, our gate was the furthest possible terminal. Once we got on the plane it was bad news bears. About 20 min in I was so hot and the stomach not so good. There was a few seats open in the back of the plane. So I sat back there since I had some more space and it was cooler and close to the bathroom. I just made it through customs/immigration and straight to the bathroom. I'm not quite sure what was going on, but a mix of jet lag, exhaustion, new food, new place, and motion sickness will do the trick. So needless to say I have been feeling pretty yucky all day.

I managed to get myself together while leaving the airport. We walked outside and I instantly loved it. Beautiful mountain ranges and grazing cattle with a city right smack in the middle of it. UB is an odd city. Its this strange mix of post-soviet style and modern. There will be a beautiful brand new building right next to an old, falling down one. Traffic here is equally as awful as Beijing, compounded by the fact that the roads are terrible.

Visted the Mongolian Red Cross Office. In the IFRC office there are 2 Solongos, Mendee, Jose, Bilgee, and Javier(did not meet yet). Then downstairs is the National Office where there are about 5 people working, one of whom is a Peace Corp volunteer, Tia. We all went out to lunch, but I still couldn't stomach much so I just got rice and some sprite. I decided to rest it off at the hotel instead of attending the second half of a conference. So the hotel...Its about a 2 minute walk to the office. I have an "apartment." There is a tiny kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom and workspace. Think of the most tacky decorations you possible can. This is worse. Its like a random mix of horrible 70s style, garage sale finds, and your great-granparents. There is just too much. But its clean and close and cheap so it works.

Hopefully my tummy will feel better for tomorrow.