Mitten grooming Cocoa
These two have some tender grooming moments… not as many as they have rough and tumble moments but when they do it sure is cute.
Growing some fresh herbs
We have a few herbs growing in our living room window. Pepper did some planting with her class which got us finally going on getting these going. We want to do more but there isn’t a home and garden store anywhere obvious and we need more dirt. We have quite a bit of basil growing, a couple of cilantro plants and perhaps most importantly – some mint plants. We were given fresh mint sprigs at an event close to Cinco de Mayo and they sprouted roots in the water we put them in for a week or so. We know that mint tends to spread a lot so we really need to get a large container for them too. We have never seen mint available in the stores here. Cilantro is readily available at a few places that are close by. I am not sure that we have seen any basil but we like to put the leaves on our home made pizza.
The pros and cons of living in this apartment
We live in an apartment building in the downtown area of Ulaanbaatar.
Last night the neighbor below us was having a vicious fight – loud enough that it wasn’t hard to imagine associated domestic violence. Right now I can hear a child down there having a screaming fit. So yeah, sometimes the sounds of the neighbors is a real bummer.
We’re on the sixth floor and there is no elevator. In the countless times I have spiraled p to the sixth floor I have noticed a pattern in some of the doors on lower floors. On the second floor there is a rather plain wooden door. The third is a wooden paneled door. The fourth a wooden door with many bubble-like panels. The fifth is a faux-marble door. They seem to get more ornate as you go up. Then our plain green metal door to greet us home. Carrying groceries, luggage, and everything we own up those steps is one good reason to not move until we leave the country.
In the stairwell there has been all sorts of vile messes and garbage. On more than one occasion there has been broken bottles to navigate past. Once our neighbor’s dog shat on the landing below ours – it wasn’t cleaned for days and we had to hold our breath as we came and went. Vomit has been splattered on stairs too. Many tenants leave their trash on the landings and sometimes those are pretty rank.
Because we’re on the top floor all the cigarette smoke from the lower levels rises. It used to trickle into our apartment until I put weather stripping around our door to seal it out.
But it isn’t all bad living here.
By living on the top floor we get some exercise. And the view we have is certainly better than the view from lower floors. By the time we’re upstairs most of the dirt is knocked off your shoes and you have your coat and hat off.
ASU staff softball game
On Saturday the school had an open house event and afterward many of the teachers stayed for a staff softball game. We played for four hours. Pepper pitched a lot for her team. All three of us had some good hits and made runs. Jordan is clearly a natural at the game. Look at his stance in the picture below.
A few funny things happened. I sprinted through home and slid in some mud and fell on the asphalt track. I managed to only scrape up one palm because I did a roll once I went down. At another point I was warning about one of the kids throwing the bat after they hit and seconds later Jordan was pegged by the flying bat.
No Idea bar in Bangkok
Not more than a ten minute walk from the place we were staying is a strangely named “gastropub” called No Idea. The exterior is nice and the interior just as pleasant. We wandered in because of the creative sign urging women to leave their men there so they didn’t interrupt shopping.
We were greeted with a great list off beer and a very nice list of foods on their menu. At least three times while there on a Saturday afternoon the owner popped by our table to ask how things were. He was a very pleasant man and clearly is running a great business.
They had a large number and wide variety of beers on tap. We tried some of the more obscure ones they had such as the Erdinger Dark, Erdinger White, Warsteiner, and Irish Pale Ale.
We watched a Rugby game on the television while there. I am not sure that I have ever watched a full rugby game before and we learned a lot about it by paying attention to the screens. To top it off, they had very nice and clean restrooms!
Playing the Game On diet again
We have just a few weeks left in Mongolia and we somehow managed to talk ourselves and 9 other teachers into doing a three week Game On diet. Things are a little more difficult here than they were in Alaska. For one, finding whole brain products and lean protein is a little more difficult. We brought some whole grain pasta back from Thailand which helped out. Fruits and vegetables are pretty expensive and not very good quality. Another problem is that now I can not just wander to the bathroom to get rid of some of the liters and liters of water that you have to consume. Sometimes I have twenty kids under my supervision running around outside so peeing isn’t possible. Fortunately our schedule has a morning break that really helps with cramming in the five meals into even the busiest days. I am also lucky that I can sometimes squeeze in a little exercise for myself when I have a class doing some activities.
We started on Monday and my scale said I was at 195 pounds. By Thursday morning I was already down to 189.
We have modified the game a little bit to make it a little less difficult because of being in Mongolia. It is largely “do your best” which does make scoring a little tricky.
Read the post that my peer and opponent Graeme wrote about the diet to get some more details and a humorous recap of his first day experience.
Photos of airplanes taking off at sunset
During our long layover in the Beijing airport we watched the sun begin to set and then create the perfect backdrop for pictures of airplanes taking off. Here are some of the pictures I captured.
This is very typical of the sky in Beijing – except you can see the sun. There is a constant foggy pollution (the term “smog” just seems so dated) that is everywhere. It is a different kind of pollution than the choking smokiness of Ulaanbaatar. Sometimes it is so bad that flights are grounded because of the reduced visibility.
It took a few takes to get this one of a jet right in line with the sun. Notice the reflections – the white areas – that could be touched up.
I shot a little video too but they would have come out much better with a tripod.
Tawandang Brewery in Bangkok, Thailand
What did Pepper want to do before spending four days in the hospital during a medical trip to Thailand? Go to a brewery. I’m awfully lucky. She did her research and found the Tawandang brewery. 
They have two locations. We went to the one on Rama 3. They have seating for a good 700 or more people but we were ther on a Monday night so the place wasn’t packed. They open at 5 PM and close around midnight so no early afternoon or lunch time drinks from them. We arrived just after they opened and stayed a few hours. We passed the time tasting their beer, having dinner, killing a cockroach, and enjoying the live music.
They have three beers on tap. Their lager was very nice. It was smooth and just a little hoppy. Their website says it runs at 5%. The Weizen had a very pleasant fruit taste. After the 90 degree weather outside it even seemed right to put a lemon in. We tried to order one but got a lime instead which wasn’t quite the right taste. It runs at 5.5% alcohol by volume. Finally they have a Dunkel which was perhaps one of the smoother dark beers I have had. It had a lower alcohol content at only 4.5% but I made up for it by ordering the glass as big as my head.
Speaking of big serving sizes, they also sell their beer in the towers so it is a nice place to go if you have friends that all like the same kind of beer. I like my beer cold though so one liter of beer is usually enough for starters.
Aside from the small cockroach we had a great time – the food was good, the beer excellent, and the entertainment definitely entertaining.
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