Week 1: Survival Mode

Summary: I just completed my first week living in Ulaanbaatar. My time so far has been full of adjusting to new living conditions and holding onto my Google translate app for dear life. Coming to terms with the reality of living in a different city has honestly been very stressful, but I have also enjoyed exploring the feeling of freedom in a completely new city.

I flew out of Incheon, South Korea and arrived in Ulaanbaatar (UB), Mongolia on Friday August 25th. When I got out of passport control, there was a man waiting with a sign with my name on it. We couldn't communicate with each other, but I just trusted the sign and decided it was okay to get in a stranger's car. Turns out everyone and their mom drives a Prius in UB.

Driving into the city, I got this giddy feeling - just the excitement of exploring a new city. However, that kind of changed when I got into my room in the teacher's dorm building. I'm going to be honest, I was shocked. I didn't have any high expectations for my living arrangements since I knew Mongolia was a lower-middle income country, but my dorm had all types of smells, peeling wallpaper, broken furniture, etc. My room also didn't feel representative of the rest of the city because there's quite decent-looking residential buildings around our neighborhood.

Being my nosy self, I investigated my room and found black mold all over my window sills. My boss at the university came to my room and had the building manager move me out of my room. My new room was also kind of busted, so she had the manager take notes of needed repairs. I'm pretty sure at this point the building manager hates me and knows me as the spoiled American kid. Oh, also my boss told me that my faucet dispensing black specks in my water can't really be fixed because it's like that everywhere.

I lucked out with location though since my church building is a 5 minute walk from my apartment. Turns out the first week I happen to be here, Elder Neil L. Andersen (an apostle of my church) was visiting Mongolia. My co-fellow English teacher, Tenzin, and I got on a jam-packed bus to attend the devotional. I got to shake his hand, so that was pretty cool.

I also found out that there's a big Korean culture presence in UB. There are Korean restaurants and convenience stores at every block, and a six-story Korean market/mall close to my apartment. Having these locations nearby has actually been quite helpful in giving me a sense of stability and comfort being so far away from home. My source of joy has been going to E-Mart everyday.

Just today, our university had an opening ceremony to celebrate the start of the new academic year. It was cool to watch the student performances and hear the national and school anthems. After the ceremony, I met with my supervisors and did a lot of the onboarding process in preparation for my first class on Monday.

In all honesty, the first week has been difficult. It's been hard walking around in the smog, finding something new that is broken in my apartment each day, and not being able to communicate with others due to language differences. And on top of that, I've just fallen sick, so it kind of feels like I'm fighting Mongolia for my life.

BUT this was NOT meant to be a sad post. A lot of the time, it's easier to dwell on what's not going so well, but it just takes conscious decisions to think about what has been good. Overall, I'm enjoying being here. It feels surreal to be in the other side of the world. The friends that I made with the other Princeton in Asia fellows in UB, singing at karaoke, the late night stops at convenience stores, and the warm colleagues that I've met so far are telling me that this is going to be a good year.

Once I feel better, I will *hopefully* tackle my second week in Mongolia with more grace. Except, we finally start teaching classes next week, so I'm sure I will have more challenges to face!