Summary: I spent the weekend visiting Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, which was my first time exploring Mongolia outside of the city. I've also been working on deepening my relationships with my colleagues but at a cost...
Last Saturday, my friends and I visited Terelj National Park. It felt so good to escape the city and spend the day in the outdoors. We first visited the statue of Chinggis Khan, which is apparently the world's largest equestrian statue. He didn't allow anyone to make depictions of him when he was alive, so we don't exactly know what he looked like. But I think whoever designed the statue still did a great job in capturing the menacing look.
After that, we drove to Turtle Rock, which is a rock formation that looks like a turtle. According to the sign at the site, legend says that a general's wife had hidden her silver jewelry at Turtle Rock. The general wanted to leave the area, but his wife didn't want to leave her jewelry behind, so her husband left her. It seemed like both parties weren't the best with prioritizing.
Around Turtle Rock, I got to hold a saker falcon and ride a camel for the first time. Surprisingly, sitting on a camel was so comfortable. I've been having back problems for about a year now, but leaning back on my camel's second hump really gave me that lumbar support that my chairs are missing. The owner told me that I could buy Temka (the camel I rode) for 500 USD, and I was quite tempted to bring him home because I could sure use camel massage therapy.
That whole day was extremely eventful because when we returned home, we got tied up in a situation that landed us in the police station. A student from China on our floor asked us for help in trying to contact the police because her phone had been pickpocketed at a main intersection. She couldn't speak Mongolian, and her English was not great. I still can't speak Mongolian, but I did take Mandarin in college - enough to translate for her. So, shout out to my Chinese teachers for preparing me for this situation. We got in contact with the police, I translated Chinese to English to communicate with the officer, and got in a police car (which was cool) to file a case at the police station.
Because of the language barrier, it can be really easy to get comfortable with the expat bubble in Mongolia, so I've made it a goal to try to make more friends with local Mongolians. The faculty invited me to a teachers' weekly volleyball game, and I innocently went thinking that it would be just fun and games. Turns out that everybody here is extremely good at volleyball; they take it so seriously.
My forearms and wrists were so sore by the third game, that I couldn't play anymore, but the teachers kept insisting that I had to play. I definitely was the worst player because out of six games, the team I was in never won. I got pretty close to winning the last game, but that was probably because all the teachers decided to drink a round of shots before that one. My arms were red, black, and blue, and I am still recovering from my bruises. So yes, I'm making more friends, but I didn't know that making new friends could be so painful.
To finish up this blog post, I just wanted to reaffirm that teaching has been great. I wrapped up our second week and also got to hold my first office hours. I think holding office hours is one of my favorite aspects of the job. Being able to talk with students and learn about their motivations is really inspiring. We are finally having in-person classes next week, so I am excited to meet my students for the first time!
So cool to see how your Mandarin skills came in handy!!!