Latest / bit of a Rambler / 138 Ramble On

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138 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. So moving off from China, getting into
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: some Mongolia action, a few things to close up from China.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I think I mentioned my last dinner with Terry, but
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I also got my last dinner with Sean. He was
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the one who introduced me to that toy row, which
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is cut with bone, like a small strip of bones,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: so it's a little bit crunchy after the bone is boiled.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It must be cartilage, though, because if it was just
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a shaving of bone, it would be so difficult to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: eat even after it was boiled or cooked. Boy, if
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: anybody knows what toy row is, tell me. I really
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: thought everybody said bone, but I don't know how much
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: sense that makes. Anyway, it was delicious, so I took
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Sean to a place with really good toy row gongoa
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: toyro so stir fried dry, stir fried with a bunch
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of spices. The first time I had it was perfect.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It's like one of the best dishes I've ever had.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: But then when I took Sean, of course they screwed
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: up the order and I was like, no, it was
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: still eight out of ten. But after you've had ten
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: out of ten, and I want to chow my friend.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: The ten out of ten, eight out of ten was
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: somewhat lackluster, but you know what, as Gloria Gaynor said,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I will survive. It was still a really fun dinner.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And Sean has a baby and a family, so he
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: has not really gone wild and got real drunk in
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a very long time, according to him, four years. But
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I remember getting drunk with him, I believe a couple
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of years ago or well whatever. Anyway, this time we
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: did get very, very drunk, and I think I scared
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: him because I was dodging mopeads running to the restaurant.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And he's so used to watching his kid that when
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: he's around anybody else, Sean is dad mode and he's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: always very protective. So I noticed him being a little
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: more worried about people going into the road. And yeah,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: he's a good dad. He protects his kid, and now
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: he has dad brain. That's just what happens when you
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: have a kid, as far as I understand. And we
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: had to run across the street a couple times and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: get some more beer, and he was very excited, and
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: we went to the craft beer place and ate some
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yak Jerkey and had a couple brews there as well.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We just had a big old hog while beer night
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: with the boys and it was a lot of fun.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And then after that, that's when I talked that crazy
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: creep for ten more hours, just drinking more beer all
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: night like a crazy person. And then I went to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the second Frog dinner with Terry. Wow, what a crazy
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: goofball I can be. So thank you Sean, Thank you Terry.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Oh and I should mention I'm an idiot because I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: made sure to charge my USBC plugin adapter and the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: microphone Bluetooth MIC so that I could do interviews with
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: both Sean and Terry. But maybe I drink too much
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: beer or whatever. Every time I thought about interviewing them,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I got to bring my MIC,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and then I just didn't bring it and I went
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and hung out with them. It would have been difficult anyway,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: because I was We were all with Sean. It was
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: always him and his family, so it would have been
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: difficult to interview him. I could have done at the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: last dinner maybe, but I don't know how fun that
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: would be. I was only there for a couple of weeks,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: so we were having too much fun hanging out. I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: don't know if I could have got either of them
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: alone for an interview, but yeah, sorry about that. I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: definitely planned on having at least Terry because he's he
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a kid, so I knew he'd have a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: little more time. And then I figured I would be
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: able to get Sean for like fifteen minutes and get
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a small interview. But I'm too dumb and I don't
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: plan anything. So I'm thinking I might just call them
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: up and have them send me our recorded call, and
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: then we'll just do like a little interview that way,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: because I want to start doing interviews on this thing.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I want to have some other people talking. Do you
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: think that sounds good? Or do you just love listening
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to this single monotonous tone of my voice? Hey, if
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you like it, I mean more people. The numbers are
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: going up, downloads are going up. I'm not getting even
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: twenty downloads a day, I don't think, but it's a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: lot higher than I used to be perfectly frank with you. You
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: got used to get it like a couple of day,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and now it's I got like one hundred the other day.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But I think that's flu I think AI is just
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: downloading these things, but yeah, ten listeners and then real
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: people are writing in, so I know I'm connecting with
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of people, and I'm really glad to hear
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: from you. I do. It's a lot of fun doing
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: this too. I'm sure I'm gonna have fun looking back
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: on these or sharing these stories with people, no matter
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: what comes of it. I thought about writing a book,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: but it's just not that doesn't sound that doesn't sound
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: as much fun. And I don't want to do a
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: video channel because that sounds like way more work. But
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: telling stories it's what I do. You know, I just
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: told you how I hung out with someone I didn't
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: even like, talking for ten hours and drinking beer with them.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Apparently I just like blabbing, Okay. So then I went
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to the biggest airport in the world because I had
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to get to Mongolia. It's the first time I left
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: from Beijing Dashing Airport, which I knew about, but I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: never had a flight leaving from there and to Mongolia.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: A bunch of flights go from Dashing and back to Dashing.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: So for a long time, Beijing International was the main airport,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Pecking Airport and that's in the far far north east
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: of the city. I have been to that airport more
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: times than I account. Probably one hundred times. No, lie,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: like probably close to one hundred, I would but yeah,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: probably close to one hundred times because I did a
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: lot of visa runs from that airport back in the day,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and then I also went through Beijing. Every time I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: visited countries through Asia, I would fly through Beijing. So
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: maybe one hundred times, which is wild to think about.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But dashing a new airport twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, something
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: fairly new, and it's the biggest airport in the world apparently,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and it didn't feel like the biggest airport in the world.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: But I don't know. That's what the online sources say,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: So who am I to disbelieve them, except clearly I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: don't trust them. It's a very nice airport, and it
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was shockingly empty. There was maybe that's because it was
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: so big now it was. It was very well organized,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it was very clean, and it was very sparsely populated.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: It there wasn't a ton of people inside. There was
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: still plenty of people. It's a major airport, but it
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: just wasn't really crowded. Most of the time, so I
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: just went upstairs, put down my pack, laid down and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: took a nap until my plane was ready for checking.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Oh I did, Okay. I met a girl who cosplays
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: different anime characters the last night before China, and I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: can't even remember. She worked at a shop and we
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: started talking and then she was like, yeah, I cosplay
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: things because I know she had like cool gloves or
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: something I can't remember. And then she showed me some
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: objects and that's her, that's her thing. She likes to cosplay,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and she's she looked cool. She looked pretty good at it.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: She had like a street fighter thing and other stuff. Anyway,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: back at the airport, because I'm on my way to Mongolia,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and when I go to a place, I like to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: learn the language of wherever I'm going, whichever country I
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: go to, and my usual way to do that is
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: to find the best app for learning that language and
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: then study the language. So recently, uh, dual Lingo for
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Me has been back on track, so I've started using
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: dual Lingo again. They ruined their app completely with AI
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: for I didn't use them for over half a decade,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I think over five years, but I liked the Japanese
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: course recently, so I started using that, and I use
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: other ones too, Like when I went to Australia, I
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: had to learn like diet Snake from the Diet Snake app.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. There's no dirt Snake app, but that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: would be funny if there was an Australian accent app.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I bet that there's got to be right. There probably
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: is an accent app. But Dulingo does not have Mongolian,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, weird, okay that happened in
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: plenty of like they didn't have Thaie I think it
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: was or No, they have Vietnamese, which maybe it was Thai.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: They didn't have some very popular East Asian language that
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I was surprised by, and so I had to find
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a specific app made by someone from that country. So
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: if I don't have one on the main app dual
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Lingo like I usually use, I'll just learn different things
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and if there's no resources then I will just use
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the dictionary. But there's resources for every language these days
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: except Mongolian. I was shocked. I downloaded every single app.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: There were about twenty different apps, and the only one
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that taught Mongolian at all was Ling and their curriculum
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: is well, it's not free. First of all, you have
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to purchase a bunch of levels. And it did seem good,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: but I know also that Ling is completely AI made,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and I just didn't expect it to be super useful,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: so I ended up I don't even I didn't even
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: get a dictionary. None of the dictionaries had audio. There
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was no audio pronunciation. Even Lin didn't have all of them,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and that was clearly AI. It was. It's weird, it's weird.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I guess it makes sense there's only three million people
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: in the country and it's the only country that speaks Mongolian.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: But I was pretty shocked that nothing. None of the
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: dictionaries have audio recordings, so I couldn't even look up
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: a word and pronounce it, or like hear it pronounced,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: because if it's romanized phonetics, it doesn't make any sense.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Like Google Translate does not have any audio pronunciation. So
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: there's a word and it's spelled b a yaar la laa,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: so that sounds like by our la la but that's wrong,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and it's even written like that in Mongolian. But that's
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: not how anybody says it. It's bayer Schlach, which is
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the l sound, and then you breathe around your tongue
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: while touching the tip of your tongue up on the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: roof of your mouth, and that's the approximation I can get.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I haven't gone to any language schools here. I just
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: learned a couple of words so I could say or
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: biersta like thank you, goodbye. Very basic stuff. But I
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: was shocked that Google Translate doesn't have audio. None of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the Mongolian English dictionaries have audio for me to listen
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to the audio at all, and the writing in Mongolian
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and in Romanized English do not correspond to the pronunciation
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: of many many of the words, like most of the words,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I completely I just stopped using them. I used YouTube
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to learn like the top ten words neg means one,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: so I have like a few words. And I started
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: studying the cyrillic alphabet, the Mongolian cyrillic alphabet, so that
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I could read some stuff. But it's very surprising that
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: there are zero audio resources for Mongolian aside from like
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a few YouTube videos, but even those are extremely sparse
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and very basic fundamental. Everyone here did seem happy when
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I can say bishlaut or biotish style or whatever they
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: do like that. I'm trying to speak it. But there's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: really that's as far as I can go. I can
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: just say hello, sambanu and goodbye and thank you, and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: then a couple numbers and some odd words here and there, kushur,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: this great pastry here that I like, savory pastry, delicious,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: kim chi and yak meat. Okay, I'm at the biggest
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: airport in the world, and I discover that I can
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: not study Mongolian, so that really irritates me. And after
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: going through every single app available for learning Mongolian and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: not finding a single one that provides audio pronunciations, I
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: shrug my shoulders and say, hey man, that's life, because
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you know what it is, and sometimes you just don't
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: have the resources you need. And if this was thirty
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: years ago, I wouldn't even have apps. There would be
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: no I'd have a pocket dictionary that was completely with
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: all these spelling errors that don't coordinate to the spoken language.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: YouTube wouldn't be a thing. I wouldn't have anything. So
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you know, at least I had a couple basic words,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and I'll be able. I've studied plenty of languages before
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I'll get to study languages again. I'm going to study
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Korea when I go to Korea, and I'm going to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: study Japanese again for the fifth time when I go
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to Japan. I'm plenty fortunate. I shouldn't be complaining, but
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to study Mongolian because it's cool and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: this is a cool country and these are cool stylish people.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Mongolians are very stylish, and they have tons of restaurants
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: from Korea here, so I'm wondering if they're like influenced
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: by Korea. But they don't wear a ton of makeup.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It looks like the girls are starting to wear some
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: sort of makeup tutorial makeups, but it's not very popular here,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and they're they're Their dress here is like like motorcycle
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: club chic. It's like very tough and cool and not
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: super delicate, and delicate is a good way, like the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: South Korean generally is. Oh wait, there's one other thing
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: from China. It looks like that. I is this the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: wrong No, it's mostly in order. There's just one Beijing
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: thing that was not in order for some weird reason.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Oh you know what, there's two things because right before
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I left, I talked to someone in a park I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: just hung out and then she said I made her
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: feel open minded and I was like, yeah, cool, dude.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: High five. Travelers help people feel open minded a lot.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I hear that a lot, so that's always nice to hear.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You know, did I say that last week? I can't remember. Okay, wait,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: there is this last thing. So before I left Bangkok,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I was talking to this girl in the hostel and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: at first she was very excited to hear about traveling,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and then she just said, yeah, but you're so lucky
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: because the US dollar's worth so much. And I was like, well,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you're a corporate lawyer, so you probably make a lot
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: more money than I do. And she said, yeah, but
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: you have USD, so it's worth more. I was like,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: well not really. If you have the equivalent that I have,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: like more equivalent money than I do, then you have
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: more even if you only have M and B. She's like, yeah,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: but redmen B is worthless. I was like, no, six
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of them are one USD. So if you have one
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: thousand remnant B and I only have fifty dollars US,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you'll have much more because fifty US is only three
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: hundred remen b and she was like, yeah, but with
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: fifty US you can buy five thousand remnen b. And
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I realized that she didn't understand foreign currency, like the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: exchange rate. She didn't she didn't get that. She was
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: just like, you have magic currency because it's from the US,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: which I do hear occasionally. There are people, especially from
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: China that have that mindset. It's not super common, but
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: it does happen. But I was kind of surprised because
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: she seemed very highly educated. She spoke fluent English. She
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: was a native so she was like fluently bilingual and
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: seemed very smart, and also worked with international clients, so
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: you would think she'd understand the okay, So I thought
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that was weird enough, and then she got a little
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: irritated about that, but I just moved on and I
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: showed her some receipts. She was like, well, how can
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: you live on five hundred US dollars a month? And
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I showed her. I was like, well, I stayed in
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: this hostel, it's one hundred US dollars per month, and
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: then that's with utilities and Wi Fi, so I have
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: four hundred extra dollars the rest of the month. To
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: eat food, or rent a bike and go somewhere, or
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: buy swimming gear or whatever. Just do whatever I want.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: And she's like, ah, because it's USD and I was like, no, no, no,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: not because USD, because it's four hundred USD equivalent in
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Thailand or whatever. And things are cheap. Things are cheaper
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: in low cost countries, like China's food is much cheaper
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: than US food. But you can go to Thailand and
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: some of their products will be even cheaper than some
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of the products in China. And she's like, well, I've
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: only been to Bank. I haven't been to Thailand yet.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, Bangkok is the capital of Thailand,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: so you have been to Thailand. And she gave a
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: very haughty laugh and said, no, I went to Bangkok
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the country. I have not been to Thailand. And she
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: was getting pissed at this point, and I was like, ah,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Bangkok is the capital of Thailand, so you've
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: been to Thailand. And she was like, well, who knows.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're right, Maybe you're right, and I was like,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean we have phones a weekend, just
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: check real quick. And then she was like, anyway, I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: have to go and left. I have met plenty of
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: people in China my six and whatever year's living there
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and visiting, and even in other countries. If someone's speaking Mandarin,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I like to talk to them and then they're like, oh,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you speak Mandarin and we have a conversation. I met
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: plenty of people. This the the lack of awareness about
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the wider world around. This international business lawyer was bowled
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: me over. I was very surprised at the turn this
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: conversation went. I don't know, and plenty of I know
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: plenty of Chinese people who have been to Bangkok. I've
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: never met one who thought Bangkok was a separate country
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: than Thailand. That is remarkable, even just the size of Bangkok.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: How looking at a map it says capital. I was
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: amazed that anyone could think that was a separate country.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I'm so curious how that happened, especially since she was there.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: She lived there for like a month for a business trip,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and somehow it just it skipped her awareness that Bangkok
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: was part of Thailand. And lawyer anyway, weird. Thanks lawyer girl.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: It was an interesting talk brought into my mind. Okay,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: we're almost in Mongolia, folks, so I am on the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: plane and I'm waiting for someone to sit next to me,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and you know, you just have luck. Sometimes they're cool,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes they're not. And this girl walked up and sat
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: down next to me, and she was cute, and I
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: looked over and then I was like, wait a minute,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I know what that is. That's a jalaba. I said
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that in my head because I don't know this person
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to be a creepy guy on
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a plane. But she was wearing something I haven't seen
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: in over a decade, probably whenever I was in Morocco.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That must be ten years ago. Wait, that's not who
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: knows close to ten years ago. We'll say, I'm not
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: good with time. This girl sat down and I saw it,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and it could have been some other dress from another
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Middle Eastern country. But I owned a jalaba for the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: three months I was living in Morocco, so I was
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: pretty comfortable, like recognizing the style of dress. And jelaba
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: looks like you know those jaua in Star Wars in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie, they buy R two D
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: two and they sell him back to the guy. They're
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: wearing those like big cloaks with big hoods. And big sleeves.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what a jealaba looks like, except jaalaba's
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: are usually brighter colors or lines like gold decorating lines.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: They look super cool and they're very comfortable and they
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: completely block you from the sun. So I got one
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of those, and I went around Morocco Marrakesh, and everybody
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: was happy to see a foreigner trying on their dress.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And everybody said Ali Baba because I had a beard,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and apparently Ali Baba had a beard, and if you
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: have a beard, then you are ali Baba if you're
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: visiting Marrakesh. And I would always say Ali Baba jelaba.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: So I'm very I know about jalava's. I at least
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: know the name and the look of a jalava so
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: south and before we took off, I was like, that's
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a jalaba. Probably I'll ask her later. But I don't
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: like talking to people on a plane in general, especially
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: once they find out I'm a traveler, because if they're interested,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: then now I am. I am in my chair and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I just have to field every question and sometimes there
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: are a lot of them, and this has happened. I've
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: been on like a six hour flight and someone is
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: just talking and I'm like, I just gotta answer, you
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: just gotta answer these questions. I'm pretty good at shutting
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a conversation down if I don't want to. But I'd
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: rather not have to do that. Better never begin, So
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't talk to her. I figured i'd just asked
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: her later. And we went through the flight, and every
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: time there was the slightest thing of turbulence, she pulled
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: out a Koran. I think she was trying to be surreptitious,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: which I get. I mean, there are plenty of parts
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of the world, the US, of course, and a lot
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of Western Europe that are very uncomfortable with Muslims, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I think she was just trying to not draw attention
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to herself. But then again, she was wearing a very
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: stylish jalaba, which is a very distinctive gown robe cloak
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: cloak robe, and she kept praying. She kept saying the prayer,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: one of the prayers to Allah, whenever the plane shook
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and she'd just bow her head down
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and say the prayer and then come back up and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: bow her head say the prayer. Every every time it happened,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and we were on a plane to Mongolia, so there's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: high winds and there's there was clouds and all that,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: so it was shaking a little bit, but anytime it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: shook at all, man, she probably did that prayer fifty
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: times for that two hour ride, and hey, it worked.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: We got to Lampatah, So thanks jalava girl, which I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: know because on our way in, I was like, Hey,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: is that a jalaba? She's like yeah. I was like,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: it looks good. It looks really cool. And her accent
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: was North American. She sounded like she was from the US,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and we exchanged a couple pleasantries. I was kind of
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: perplexed though she was almost the only other person on
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: this flight with me to Mongolia, but whatever, I didn't
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: care that much. And then we landed. I was just
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: interested in the jalaba, and then I wanted to ask
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: her about the Quran because it had pinion romanized pronunciation
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: under the prayers and everything. So she must have recently
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: got into Islam because she had to phonetically sound out
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: all of the Arabic letters using Romanized letters, and I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was very curious what she was going to do in Mongolia.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: We talked about Morocco a bit and I mentioned chef
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Sha and she liked Fez, the only dangerous city I've
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: ever been to. She loved Fez apparently, So that was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: great to hear, because I that's the first good thing,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: like from a person who's been there, especially a girl.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: That is the first time I've heard someone going to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: that city and complimenting it. So maybe she's gone recently
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and it's radically changed since I was there ten years ago,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: or maybe she was in Mosques, or maybe she has
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: family there, or maybe she's a different circumstance, but that
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: was nice to hear, all right. And now I'm in
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Flip in Mongolia, and the first thing that happens I
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: find out that my no fee travel credit card doesn't work,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and I was like, that's weird because it works everywhere
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: in the world. And the ticket lady looked confused too,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and I didn't. I tried to look at it to
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: see what went wrong, but it's all written in Mongolian cyrillic,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: so I'm like, well, I have no idea. I'll probably
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: figure that out later, and I did. It turns out
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: that even though it says visa and I have a visa,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: golumpt Bank is a popular local bank in Mongolia does
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: not work with my visa card. Every other bank in
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Mongolia works with my visa card except Golumpt Bank. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: there's TDB and Hassbank and Handbank, and I've tried all
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of them and they all work fine. But there's something
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: wrong with Golumpt. So I don't know if it's all
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: visa cards. But if you head there and your card
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't work in a place, try another place with a
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: different looking card reader. The card readers are different styles
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: based on which bank produces the card reader, So if
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you're a Mongolia and your card doesn't work, try another
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: store with a card reader that looks different than the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: one your card was declined on. Because apparently some of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the banks aren't tied into the international credits system, so
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: they don't work with international cards, is what I'm thinking.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: But that's okay. I transfer like thirty bucks US and cash,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and turns out that's a ton of money. I thought.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I really thought I only had like ten bucks left
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of my Japanese yen. That's all I used. Actually I
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: just used the leftover Japanese yen, and I really didn't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: think I had that much, But I got like two
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand two Greek, which is the Mongolian currency, and
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: that was ten times as much as I expected to get.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna get twenty thousand, which I
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: knew was enough to take the airport limousine into the city,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and then he gave me two hundred thousand, and I
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was like, I don't know whatever. I took it. Obviously,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it's a big stack of cash. And I waited for
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the bus and then I got straight on as soon
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: as it showed up. And then we had to just
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: sit there for forty five minutes until left. Took forty
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: five more minutes to into the city. But it was
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: interesting because it's a new country. It was late, it's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: already midnight. I'm excited to be in a new country.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: And everyone's speaking Mongolian, which is such an interesting language.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: It's like halfway Chinese, halfway Russian. There's a lot of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: aspirants like that. But it's a little guttural, very cool language.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I like languages. All languages are cool, but I do
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: like some languages more and Mongolians very interesting to me.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I wish I could have studied it, but oh well
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I can't. So I get into the city. I get
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: off at Zukbatar Square, which is the main square of
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the city, and all of a sudden I realized how
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: tiny ulan Batara is. Like I had heard people told
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: me that it was too it was a very difficult
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: city to walk around. And I have no idea what
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: they're talking about, because it takes I don't know, it
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: takes maybe two hours to walk from the extreme north
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to the extreme south of the city, and it would
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: probably take five hours to walk from the west to
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the east of the city just strolling down the street.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: If you're driving a car, it would be like ten
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: minutes northwest and twenty minutes east east west north south
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: east west. I mean it's and it's all completely flat.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Oh no, Actually, the north of the city does go
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: up in elevation, but it's largely flat. It's a pretty
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: flat city overall, so it's definitely walkable. It's easy as heck.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I got from the middle of suck Wotar Square to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the far southeast walking at a brisk pace because it
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: was chilly. And you never know with Airbnb, the map
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: might be wrong. Maybe you'll have to search around for
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a while to find it doesn't happen a lot, but
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking. So I was walking at a
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: brisk pace, and I think maybe it took me one
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: hour to get to that. I'm thinking like forty five minutes.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: It really was a pretty easy walk to get to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the apartment. I found it right away. It's a nice
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: little spot. I'm digging it. I stopped on the way
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and got some horse jerky and some yak jerky from
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a convenience store, got a couple of beers, got like
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a sandwich or something just to try, like the local
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: snack food they have in the convenience stores, and it
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: was it was good. It was The meat is incredibly
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: high quality. I'll say that the meat here always super fresh,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: probably because it's cold temperature and the air is really dry.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: But all the meat is so fresh here, and I
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: really liked it. But it's so fresh and so like real.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: The meat is so real that it's almost too rich,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: especially the yak meat, but I love it. I'm definitely
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: into yak meat. I was just surprised at how not
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: but how sated I felt after a few bites of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: this yak jerkey. I didn't finish at all. I brought
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: more than half of the pack home with me, which
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: shocked me because I can eat jerky for okay. Also,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: this wasn't completely dry jerky. It was slightly moist jerky,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and I don't like that as much as really dry jerky.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: But I was glad. I walked into a store on
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the first thing I see is horse jerky, yak jerky,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and a row of beer. And I was like, well,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I guess I know what I'm doing to celebrate, celebrate,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: to celebrate Ma and now Carroll visit to Mongolia. And
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it was good. So I walked down, got into my room,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: passed the f out. And then the next day I thought, okay,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: this is the first real day, so you get to
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: have one more beer before you take a little break.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And I went down to the supermarket. And there's a
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: great supermarket, and as I've stayed here longer, I found
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: out it's one of the best super markets, not even
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: a five minute walk from my building, and there's only
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: two of them in the city, or not many of them,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and it was very close. So I went inside. And
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I love looking around supermarkets and seeing all the different
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: foods and the different the different things that are normal
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: in each country. Each country is like, well, yeah, of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: course we have dried pitted plums. That's everybody loves dry
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: pitted plums. But you're not going to find that in
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: every country. That's just like commonly like real fruit. It
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: turns out they have a lot of dehydrated food here.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: It's a big thing, which I kind of knew that
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: they do preserve meat and preserve a lot of things
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: in Mongolia traditionally because they're nomads. But there's a lot
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of dried fruits and dried meats that you can get
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: in this country, which I like because I like dehydrated
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: food a lot. And after I'm walking around looking at stuff,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I see this guy at a chicken shop and for
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: some reason it sounds good to me, so I walk
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: over and say hey, and he talks and fluent English,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and i'm because he's the first person I think who
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: speaks English that well. I find out that they don't
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: teach English in every school in Ulambatar. It's not super common,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: so people don't. Yeah, people don't learn English growing up
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: in Mongolia. Apparently by default, some do some so another
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: person told me that they all schools teach English. But
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that was the only person that told me that another
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: ten people told me that they don't teach English in schools,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: so I think that person maybe just wanted me to
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: think better of the country. But I don't judge anyone
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: for not teaching English in their schools. Anyway, this guy
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: great English. Oh my god, I should have freaking interviewed him.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: What is wrong with me? Okay, maybe I'll do that.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: That's so funny. I've gone back a few times and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: their chicken shop is closed down right now, Okay, I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: meet this kid. Kid is cool. His name is boyn On.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: He has three scholarships. He's called Age's gonna go to
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: university soon and he can go to China, South Korea,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: or Japan. And I was like, man, have you got
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: to China. It's gonna be the best food in the world.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And then he was like yeah, but I'm really sensitive
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: to smells. And I was like, then you probably don't
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: want to go to China because they're of those three countries,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: China's smells are the strongest. And he's like, especially body odor,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and I was like, that's another red flag. If you're
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: on one of those subways, you're gonna run into a
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: couple people with body odor and He told me he
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: used to work at a Mongolian restaurant here and he
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: could smell Chinese people when they went into his restaurant,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and that's I know, you're if you're a US person,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you're like, what, that's racist. That's how people talk in
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: other countries. There's not there's no veneer of civility or
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: non bigotry in most other countries in the world, including Europe.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: In most countries, you don't you don't get the you
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: don't get the cultural attitude that you shouldn't judge a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: book by its cover. So that's a very common thing
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: to hear from any country. Chinese people say similar things
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: about Japanese people. Japanese people say it about Koreans. Everybody
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: has their opinion, well, Japanese people because they're so polite.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: But oh, actually, you know what, No, I know a
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Japanese guy and he definitely complained about Chinese people the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: whole time, just how dirty everything in China was, So
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: you will get that's very common. That's just blunt like thing.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: And that's what he told me. And I was like, eh, well,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I have friends there and they're not all smelly. He's
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: like yeah, but usually they're so smelly. I was like, okay,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and then I talked about South Korea and I was like,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: it sounds like you want South Korea. Japan's a little uptight,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: they're not super happy all the time because they have
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to work so much, and they're very detail oriented. So
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: if you want, if you just want to fund the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: best experience, probably South Korea. And he likes Korean. He's
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: interested in the language, he likes the music, and he's
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: it seems the dramas. It seems like that's where he's
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: leaning anyway. But he's still gonna go on a trip,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: very brave. He's going to go to Beijing, check out China,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: which he's gonna hate because the air smells bad in Beijing,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: and then he's gonna go to South Korean. Then he's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: going to go to Japan and then bounce back to
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Mongoli after make his decision. I'm betting it's going to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: be South Korea. But he was a nice guy to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: talk to and it was really interesting. We talked for
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a while, maybe twenty five minutes, and I ordered so oh,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: there's so many Korean restaurants and there's so much Korean
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: chicken here, So I ordered some Korean fried chicken from him.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Soy garlic, but it's still really sweet. But it was
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: good and he cooked it good, and we talked about
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: recipes for good Korean chicken and I was like, I
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, but you gotta fry it twice. And he's like,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: it's not my restaurant. They won't let me. All right,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: was study boy. And then I get the chicken. Oh.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I told him that I wasn't gonna eat chicken because
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I usually don't eat that early in the day. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: then I walked by the beer section and there was
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: like fifty beers to choose from, and I was like, well,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: and I grabbed a beer and went back and I
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, I got to try this beer, so
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to need some fried chicken with that. And
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: he was like great and fried me had some soy
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: girl like fried chicken. I said, bon voyage to the fella. Oh,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: they cook it fresh too, relatively, you know, it's a
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: fast food thing. But he cooked it right there. So
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: it took ten minutes. But then got my beer, got
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: my chicken, said goodbye to study Boy, and went out
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the door checked out, and I just sat down outside
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: on a bench and ate, and within a minute a
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: homeless dude walked up and started speaking Mongolian, and I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: was like sorry. He said where are you from, and
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: he said a couple things in very broken English, and then,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: without caring what my answer was, he just pointed to
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the beer I was drinking, and I was like, yep,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: it's good. I like it so far. And then he
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: pointed at it again and then pointed at himself aggressively,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: and it clearly could only mean give me that beer,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: and I said nope, I'm drinking this, and then he
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: nodded and he said okay, and then he just sat
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: next to me while I ate my chicken and drank
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: my beer. And when there was like, I don't know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a few centimeters of beer at the bottom, I gave
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: him the beer and he seemed very happy and he
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: drank it right away. I hear alcoholism is a problem here,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: so I decided not to drink outside after that, because
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: because that was fast. I saw him crossing the street
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: and I could tell he was already belining toward me,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and then he did. He came right across the street,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: over the sidewalk into the store area on the bench
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and was like beer. I want beer, so I'll call
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: it was probably, And they like vodka here a lot too.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I don't want to drink vodka. I don't want to.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I just want a chill. I just want to chill.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I have some chicken and beer. But I was I
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: was also thinking, like this guy's life. Probably, it doesn't
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: look like it's great. He's not gonna not drink beer
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: because I don't give him the last of my beer
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: that I don't want anyway, just give him the beer.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: So I gave him the rest of my beer, and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: he seemed very happy for it. I think he said
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: thank you, or maybe he said biershla or something, or
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: maybe he just drank it. I can't remember. It's my
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: first day in Ulambatar. I'm going I'm gonna walk around.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: See the first thing I do in a new city
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: is walk all around and find out a little alleys
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and figure out all the cool stuff to check out.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: And I was already having an interesting day. And did
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: I get my phone the first day? Let me check?
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: You know what I might I have? And I didn't
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: write that down. That was interesting because I walked into
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: there's a couple main places here. There's Mobycom, which is
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the one I eventually got, and then the bigger one
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that I tried to go to I can't remember, Unitel maybe,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and I went in there and there was fifty people.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: It was just packed, and I was like, nope, I'll
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: just walk to outside of the city and find a
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: tiny shop in stet And then I walked outside and
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: literally next door upp a flight of stairs was Mobycom,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, might as well check. I
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: walk in there and there's three people, three customers. It's
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the newer telecommunications network, so maybe people like the Unitel
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: one and that's why. But I walked in and this
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: girl saw me walk in and then looked back down
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: at her computer, just like I don't want to talk
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: to anybody, just shut up and leave. I found out
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: that's just how people kind of are here. They're an aggressive,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: insular people. They're very nice if you talk to them,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and they're very cool, but it's just like they don't
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: like work. Nobody likes work, and they're independent and badass,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: so they're like, I don't have to like work either,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: like in Japan, they don't like to work. But it's
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: like it's a thing, it's part of their culture, Mongolia
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: is Mongolian people are like, yeah, I'll work if I
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: want to get off my back, which rings real true
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: for this guy. So I saw her do that, but
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I needed a SIM card, so I walked over and
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I said hey in my stupid tourist voice, and she
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: looked up, and she looked up and literally rolled her
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: eyes aside very quickly realize hello. And I was like, hey,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: just looking for a SIM card. She's like, uh, we
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: have SIM cards. It's like, great, thank you. Which ones
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: can I get? And she like but grudgingly pulled out
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: a full full or she like tapped on the and
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: then turned the screen toward me and she's like we
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: have this and this and this. How long are you here?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: And I was like one month. She's like, oh, that's cool,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: so you're visiting, and she like warmed up a little
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: bit and we had that nice little exchange of a
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: few sentences, and then as soon as I chose a planet,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: it was like that one She's like, okay, and she
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: got like she must hate doing the actual job. It
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: was okay when we talked a little bit, like I
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: got a couple smiles, but mostly she just looked like
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: she wanted to put a gun to her head every
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: time she had to tap into her her telecom system,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: which maybe the job sucked, I don't know, or maybe
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: that's why there's only three people, three customers in that shop,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: because she was like, just leave me alone. Boy did
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: she have that. She looked very professional, she clean, like
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: straight back hair, a nice blazer. She was super professional looking.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: But she wrote, there's another She rolled her eyes a
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: second time inside. I can't even remember what it was
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: for now. I've just been like, do you want your receipt? No, okay,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: But she rolled her eyes inside again. And it was
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: just super funny because when she was talking to me
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: and we were like, e way, we were one, one
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: on one facing each other. She seemed engaged, but as
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: soon as she would turn back to her computer, she'd
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: be like her whole face would scream, drop a piano
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: on my head please. It was pretty fun to be
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: pair of that interaction. I'll tell you, I just like
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: watching stuff. I like observing people and learning things. And
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I was just fascinated by this girl, just like what
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: is going on with her? Maybe maybe she's having a
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: really bad day. And the small talk we talked was like,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: at least that's nice, I don't have to think about
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: And then as soon as we stopped talking, Face just
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: fell back into the well of despair that her computer
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: was apparently showing her. It looked like it was just
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: showing phone plans to me, but I don't know. I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: don't work there, okay, And then I find out it's
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: what was it seven dollars for six dollars? It was
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: six dollars I think for one month, twenty five gigabytes.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: The thing I'm actually remembering is two fifty, but that
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: seems insane. It might be I've been in countries that's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: only two fifty for a month, But it was either
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: two or six, because it's it was either eight thousand
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: and two gric or twenty thousand and two grick. But
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: it was cheap. I think it was twenty thousand. Maybe
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: it was cheap as hack for six dollars one month,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: twenty five gigabytes of data. And I don't use a
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: ton of data. I have offline maps that I use
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: most of the time. And so she put it. She
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: even installed the app for me on my phone after
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: giving me the SIM card, and it tells me exactly
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: how much I've used After two weeks, I used one gigabyte. Like,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I really don't use a lot data while I'm walking around.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just listening to locally stored podcasts or music locally stored,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: or I have an offline map, So text messages really
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm using, unless I have to look up
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: like what year did Pitch Black come out? In case
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I need some Vin Diesel trivia, which that comes up
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a lot. I like movies. Pitch Black, what a good movie.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: That's Rodi Mitchell. Right, I just saw Silent Hill again.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Roder Mitchell is so good. She's Australian. What were we
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: talking about? Okay, So I got my simcard. I'm very happy.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: It looks perfect and it has been working perfectly this
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: entire time. This is it was a very painless process
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and it didn't take long. Yeah, it was great. So
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: then I'm like, all right, let's keep walking. I just
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: successfully gotten my SIM card with very little trouble. So
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I looked around for a snack to celebrate, and I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: got a beer and I got some Korean seaweed, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I've been seeing I'm only two blocks away from my
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: apartment and I've probably seen twenty Korean restaurants and the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: same amount of career markets. It's insane. It's all Korean
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: markets and restaurants in ulan Batar, the main city of Mongolia.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: If you don't know, by the way, this is interesting.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Mongolia has three million people roughly as its entire population
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: one point five million half of the entire country lives
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: in ulan Batar, in the main city, and then across
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the entire rest of the country, which is quite large,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: is the other one point five million people totally spread out.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Some of them are still nomads. I've met people in
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Mongolia whose relatives are still nomads and shepherds, and it's
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: fascinating to me. So I want some seaweeds, some crispy seaweed,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: some nori with my favorite snack. I go into a
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: store and they don't have it, not ringing. It doesn't
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: look great. So I just go to the next one
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: and the next one, and then I go in one.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, that looks perfect. That's what I want,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: some good crispy sheets of sea weed, and I get that,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and then they have a beer that I think I
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: might have just got cast Actually that really crappy regular
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Korean beer. And I go outside, and I walk around
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: and look for another place to sit down, and I'm
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: thinking that Boom wanted me earlier, so I find it
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: more out of the way spot, and it's outside this
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: little school. But it's not like I'm not drinking in
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: front of a bunch of kids. And I don't even know
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: if school was okay. There was a couple kids with
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: parents that walked in there, but I wasn't in front
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of the door drinking beer right there. I was like
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: around the corner, sitting on a little wall. And I
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: was sitting there for I don't know, ten minutes, and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I see this guy walk past me, and he looks
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: dressed up like a businessman, and he sees me in
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: like locks eyes with me briefly, and then just keeps walking.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: And then he sits down at a bench maybe fifty
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: feet away, but he has a line of sight on me,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: and I see him just looking at me. But I've
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: been to thirty countries. People look at tourists. They're just like,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: what the heck is this not my countrymen doing here?
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: And it's often just naked curiosity. And I didn't sense
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of animosity, but already I got the sense
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: that Mongolian people are more aggressive than most other countries.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: So hys Stare was a little aggressive. But I was like,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: it doesn't look violent aggressive. It just looks Mongolian aggressive,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: which is just a naked interest in whatever is. Whatever
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: you're interested in. You can have that focus in Mongolia,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: which I don't love. But it's fine. Every country is different.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: There's things, there's things in every country, and it's really
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: interesting to be in a country this aggressive. And I'll
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: say it doesn't it's not the exact same between men
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and women, but the women here are also fiercely independent
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and fairly aggressive. In terms of fiercely independent, I'll say
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: aggressive personalities for sure, very very certain in themselves. Okay,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: but I have a bunch of seaweed snacks that I love.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I have a bucket or no, I had a bag.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I had a bag of kim chi, and I got lucky,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I'll say, because I've had I've tried several kimchie since
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: that first one that was so good. That's the only
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: good one. I don't like a lot of the other ones.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: They all were too spicy, which kim chie isn't supposed
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: to be, and not very complex flavors. But this first
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: one I got jong ga was great and delicious. So
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: I ate kimchi, I ate my seaweed, and I drank beer.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just having a ball. And then after I finish everything,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I stand up. I look over and that guy fifty
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: yards away on the bench is still looking at me,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: and he's not eating anything. He just looks really aggressively curious.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: And I have to walk by him to get to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: the main I don't have to, I just walk that
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: way because I came from the other way. And as
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I walk by him, he goes, you shouldn't eat that
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: in English, not perfect English, but I can understand him.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: And I say, sir, what are you He says, you
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: shouldn't eat that food. It's bad food. And I was like,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: kim chi or nori. He's like, yeah, it's Korean, it's bad.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I was like, why is it bad. It's vegetables, and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: he said, yeah, but you're a Mongoli you should eat
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Mongolian food. And I was like, well, what are you eating.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: He's like, I'm not eating okay. And he's saying this
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: very obviously, like aggressively and confrontationally, but he's not it
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: certainly didn't. He's a businessman. He didn't look like he
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: was starting a fight. He just looked like, if you're
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: visiting Mongoli, you should eat Mongolian food. And he just
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to say that and he had to get that out.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, well, what Mongolian food should
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I try? And he looked surprised that I was engaging
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: with him. It seemed I kind of got the impression
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: that he thought I was going to like just blow
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: him off and go walk away and not listen to
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: what he had to say. And he had to think
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: for a while, and then he was like, boots, boots,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: very good Mongolian food. And it's wrapped in bread, there's
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: meat inside boots. You can eat boots, very Mongolian. It's
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: like okay. He's like, Korean food's not healthy and I
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: was like, no, it is healthy. It's like vegetables, it's
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: pretty healthy. And he's like, yeah, I like I like
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Mongolian food better. And I was like okay, cool, I'm
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: gonna go. And then he stood up and he was
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: like I'll walk with you. I'm an architect and I
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay, that's a great job. Do you
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: like it? I can'tmera. And we had small talk about
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: how he was an architect and in his building there
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: was like a whole city plan of all of Ulambatar
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: or something, which actually i've seen now that i'm thinking
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: about it, maybe that was his building. And yeah, he
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: was very excited. He Once I asked Hi about the architecture,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: he kind of became more civil in terms of less aggressive.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: He just was more excited about talking. And so we
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: talked and it was fine. But he was a weirdo.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: So I was like, oay, thanks, and he's like, I'm
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: going this way, and I was going to go that way,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: but I decided, oh, okay, my house over there, I'm
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: going to go the other way. And then he went
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: back to his architect's job and shouted at people for
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: aid and kim chi, and I was totally happy, a
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: little bit buzzed walking down the street and I saw
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: the IQ Museum, which I was very excited to go
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: to the IQ Museum or the Intellectual Museum. Actually there's
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: like a long name. A lot of the English translated
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: names here are weird to Western ears. I'm very curious
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: how that happens. I wish I could have studied Mongolian,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: so I could understand what's up with all these linguistic
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: quirks of the language. But there's no resources. If you
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: have resource for learning Mongolian, and by that I mean
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: an app that I can self direct learn the language,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I will even after I leave. Yeah, so there's there,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: There are plenty. I got boots. It was fine. It
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: was not great. It was it was okay. The meat
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: was very tough, so maybe I just went to a
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: bad boots place. But I tried it a few times
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: and that it was just always the meat was very
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: stringy and tough, which is weird for Yak meat. Like
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: I said, it's delicious and soft and amazing. But anyway,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I tried it because I hadn't tried any
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Mongolian foods yet, so I'm glad I did get to
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: try it. And nobody speaks English. I mean, it's very rare.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: That architect and then the who was the first person,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Actually the first person was the ticket lady. Anyway, it's
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: rare in Ulambatar. So it was always interesting when I
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: came across someone. But mostly I would just hand them
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: my credit card and they would speak in Mongolian, and
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: I would try to just say yes and buy it
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: or shalot and which just thank you, and just try
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: and get through the interaction, and mostly that works fine.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I walked to Sukbatar Square back during the day because
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I arrived at midnight, and it's actually an extremely impressive
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: city square, Like if you go to tianan Men, you're
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: not going to be impressed. It's a big square of
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: concrete and you can't really see too much from it.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: It's just a large collection of paving stones. It's pretty boring.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: But if you go to Ulambatar Suckquitar Square, there's the
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: massive government palace. There's a giant five meter statue of
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Genghis Khan sitting on a throne cast in bronze, just
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: staring down at you from his throne. There's another amazing
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: horse statue. There's the National Dramatic Theater for Arts or whatever,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: it's called National Drama Theater. All these very impressive looking
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: buildings around the square that I thought were very fun
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: to walk around and see and take pictures of. And
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: especially with the sun setting, the sunsets here are really
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: really beautiful. The sun very strong and very yellow, and
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: the skies are often blue with very nice clouds in them.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: So every single like sunset, Magic Hour picture I take
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: here are stunning, just like Japan. Actually very stunning pictures here.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: So I enjoyed Suck Guitar Square and I like I
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: even though it's very aggressive. I do like a lot
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: about Mongoli. It seems very practical, again, which I like
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: about China. They're just going about their lives as they
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: understand it in their country. And I don't think there's
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of religion here, and nomads are very normal here.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: So that's nice because I've been traveling for fifteen years,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: so just to know that if I told someone, if
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: I told someone, oh, yeah, I've been traveling for fourteen years,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: they'd be like, yeah, that's what you should do. This
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: is the most nomad country there is. It makes perfect
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: sense to them. And well, I'll get more into that later,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I guess. I went to a restaurant. I went to
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: a Japanese restaurant called Haku and it was pretty good.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I got some karag and I got a lemon what
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: are they called the lemon sour? Yeah, the Japanese lemon sour.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: I went into some Mongolian restaurants, but the menus didn't.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: They weren't. They had like eight dishes no matter what
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Mongolian restaurant I went into, and none of them looked amazing,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: and half of the dishes were Korean or Japanese anyway,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: so it was tricky to find like just traditional Mongolian
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: fair and I know they're around, but later on, when
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: I did go to those places, it was still boots
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and kushur, which I love actually, and noodles and then
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: fried rice. There wasn't a lot of distinctive Mongolian cuisine,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: and I think that's because they're nomads. They've been nomads forever.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: They still are a bunch of them, and if you're
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: no madding, you don't have as much time to come
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: up with fancy cuisine, especially when it gets below zero
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: six months out of the year. So not a super
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: varied cuisine looks like. But the stuff they have is good,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: which I'll get into a little bit later. I went
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: to Haku, that Japanese restaurant lemon sour karate and French
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: fries something else, can't remember whatever, it was a pretty
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: good restaurant. I decided to go back. I did a
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: couple times, but I found other better restaurants that I
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: started frequenting. Frequenting instead. The day after I got the
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: punch cart for Haku. Actually, ooh, you know what I
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: was really excited about. I went to all the supermarkets
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: looking at all the fun snacks they have, and then
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I realized they had spicy chili oil and noki mushrooms,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: which are one of my favorite snacks and I get
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: them whenever I can, and they all taste a little
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: bit different, so you have to find which brand uses
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: the real chili oil, or at least the better tasting
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: chili oil. And in Mongolia it's you'd get yood ger Is.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: It's probably the best one. There's another good one, but
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what it was because I think
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: it was written in Mongolian. But they have a bunch
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: of different types of Enochi mushrooms marinated in chili spicy
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: chili oil, which is, yeah, like I said, one of
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: my favorite sacks, delicious. So I got a bunch and
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I ate a whole bunch that day, and I still
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: have my bottle the day with me, so it's totally fine.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: After they passed through my system and I walked down
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to the National Park I had heard about, probably a
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: few days later of that first week, probably closer to
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: the end of the first week. I started branching out.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I kept walking around every day because it was an
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: interesting city. It wasn't it wasn't a fly It's not
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: I should say, it's not a flashy city. But it's
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: definitely an interesting city. And there are things happening. There's
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: a jazz club here, and there are concerts there. There's
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Imax theaters. There's stuff going on. So I went down
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: to the National Park and walked around it. I thought
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: I walked all around it. I walked around like ten
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: percent of it. It's a huge park. It's I don't
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: even know, twenty city blocks, forty it's giant. They have
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of space in this country, so I guess
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't be that surprised, but I was pretty surprised. No,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: there's no way it's forty. I don't even think it's
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: twenty city blocks. But it's large, and they have big
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: blocks in this country. Everything's pretty big here. The people
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: are bigger. The people are big Asians, and they're all
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: all the boys are handsome, cool motorcycle dudes and all
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: the chicks are tough ladies, so they're just cool. I'll
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: wearing leather jackets. They got cool hair, but not like
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: delicate South Korean hair. It's just like it's just jelled
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: or it's just like shaved. And a lot of them
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: are curly haired, and some of them have brown hair.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: And there's an urban legend, or at least a purported
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: historical fact, that Genghis Khan had red hair and some
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: say blue eyes, and since there's no picture, there's no
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: like nobody really knows for sure. But a couple of
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: people brought that up while I was here, so I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: was surprised they all know that, but I guess they must,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: because Genghis Khan is. His presence is everywhere in this
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: city and I probably around the whole country. There's a
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: fifty meters horse statue with him on it that I
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: didn't go to because all the locals were like, eh,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: it's a big horse, don't worry about it. And I've
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: seen big horse statues. I bet it would be cool,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: but I'm just just too lazy to get out there.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: It's pretty far outside the city, and I've been finding
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: so many interesting things I like to do, and explore
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: around the city that I just haven't made it there yet. Okay,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: this was interesting. Oh yeah, wait, there's a couple things.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I was at the roller rink, nineties roller rink, and
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: so they were playing like the Rough Riders Anthem and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: all sorts of nineties rap and pop R and B songs,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: all the hits of nineties US rap. And what was
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: great was that it was all in Mongolian. They weren't
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: playing the actual songs, they were playing Mongolian cover versions
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: of those songs. So yeah, there was the Rough Riders
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Anthem in Mongolian and Helicopter in Mongolian, and just all
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: these super recognizable tunes but in Mongolian, which is a cool, guttural,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: aggressive sounding language. Okay. There were a bunch of Mongolian
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: girls I noticed, and women who had stars on their heads,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and I was very confused, and I thought it was
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: just like a cute design. It looked cute, like little
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: stars on their faces one or two. I was very
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: confused though. I couldn't figured out why they would do
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: that except as a cool decoration or a holiday, you know,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: like ash Wednesday, maybe put something on your forehead. But
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: they some of the stickers were in different places, and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: there was different numbers of stickers or tattoos. I couldn't
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: even tell it first, and my host didn't know, and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I asked people. They didn't know. But I finally asked
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: someone and she told me that they're anti pimple stickers.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: They're like pimple medicated pads, and you can get them
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: in different shapes, but the stars the most popular. And
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: you know what, good it looks good like. I don't
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: think they have to they probably don't actually need to
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: use it, but it does look kind of cute that
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: there's all these ladies and girls walking around with stars
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: on their faces little David Bowie action. I mean they're
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: not giant stars like he had, but just little star
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: stickers on the face. And it looks cool. Everything looked,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, everything the people do looks pretty cool here.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: They're very fashionable people, and I'm wondering if any of
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: that fashion is influenced from Russia, but I watch a
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: lot of videos of Russian stuff. They don't seem super
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: fashionable to me. Are regular Russian people generally quite fashionable,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: like in terms of clothing, because Mongolians are like everybody
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: dress as well. In a rough rider way, in a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: rough way, in a non delicate South Korean way, but
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: they have they're clearly taking care of their appearance like
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: a South Korean wood and they take care of their hairstyle.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't look delicate. They're a broader, sturdier people
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: in general there. And they wear like, like I said,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: leather motorcycle jackets. And even if they're not cyclists, even
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: if they're not motorcycle people, they're they're wearing badass like
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: spikes and boots and stuff. They're cool. These people are cool.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: You should come here if you want to see cool people.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: The Mongolian boys. There's a lot of electric bikes here,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: like a lot of electric motorcycles, and a whole bunch
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: of the kids have them, Like I mean kid from
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, nine up to fifteen, like these
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: pretty young people and doing wheelies down the road like
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: in traffic a lot. Every day. Every hour I walk around,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing one or two kids pop a wheelie on
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: their bike, and sometimes it'll be like ten an hour.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: It's very common. I've never I haven't seen a single
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: day where I haven't seen someone doing a wheelie. When
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I've been walking outside okay, And the next up is
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: the IQ Museum, the Intellectual Museum, which is a very
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: interesting puzzle museum. But I will talk about that next week.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for listening. It's been fascinating
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: being in Mongolia. I'll tell you more Mongolian stories in
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: the next installment next week. Have a great rest of
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: your day. You can talk to me a Bit of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: a Rambler Gmail at com Bit of a Rambler Blueskin
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Bit of a Rambler, I lem me and I will
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: talk to you soon.