Getting out of town

Am up this morning and headed out to the airport shortly. There’s an express bus I’m planning on trying at 10 a.m., which is in an hour.

It takes about 40 minutes to get there, same as by metro. The metro is cheaper but I have to check a bag this time and I’d prefer not to lug it up there. However, it’s a good fallback plan.

Still no idea of what to expect. My pre-trip package didn’t arrive so I am not going to match the group – I don’t have the T-shirt or the yellow tags for my bags. Ah, well.

Last day of work before two week off was kind of horrific. I tried really hard to stave off emergencies, but people are just stupid. I set a deadline of 3 p.m. and one guy sauntered up at 2:45 and said he’d have the stuff in an hour, OK? I was like, sure, but it won’t get processed for two weeks, because I’m running the report with what I have at 3 p.m., which is why I set the deadline for 3 p.m.

People came out of the woodwork for freaky things. I know how to do all, and apparently I am the only one who can. I certainly am the only one willing to hold the hands of people to help them learn.

In some cases, they aren’t able to do the things at their own computers, so they get them ready and then have to come to me to finish it, which doesn’t bother me at all but the timing happened to be bad.

Of course, there are still the annoying ones. We have an event going on while I am gone, and the Big Boss suggested holding a raffle to give away tickets. I bounced this off the four units to see if there was interest and one person replied that unit was doing something and the rest ignored me. So whatever. No interest, I’m not pushing it.

A little later, all of a sudden, the other three units are doing it and people strongly hint at me running it. Of course, no one ever ASKS me, or acknowledges that I suggested this very thing and was ignored.

So some other guy did some of it, but kept coming and asking me really inane questions about small parts of it. And I was really so busy with other stuff that I wasn’t reading all the spam emails he was sending on the topic, so I really didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d be like, “did you read the email?” Um, no, it was quite rambly and I couldn’t figure out the point quickly, so I deleted it.

And yes, I realize blogs posts are long, rambly and pointless, but there is no action requested and you know this up front. It is also not in your work email, so it’s on you if you want to read it or now.

So anyway, that just went on and on with all kinds of stuff I won’t go into, but it ended all right except one thing: the guy, in his wisdom, wrote everyone’s on little cards for the raffle. Unfortunately, he chose to use these brand-new updated cards that we have, and we only have a few boxes of them. Of course, I have dozens of boxes of the old, outdated ones, so why he chose to do this, I will never understand.

This is what happens when I don’t do everything. It gets screwed up.

No pressure on going away for two weeks there, huh? I really do dread what I will return to.

I’ve tried really hard, but by God, they are going to have to run the ship themselves.

Anyway, my other accomplishment this week was getting my “differential” restored. When I went to the U.S., part of my pay stopped and when I got back, it didn’t get resumed on time. It really wasn’t that hard to fix, but I was relieved to have it back in there.

I’d upped my retirement contributions to max out, which means from now to the end of the year I am taking out $1800 off the top. It took forever for that to kick in, but when it did, it happened to be the paycheck I was in the U.S., which meant that it was the week I had zero differential. I also had no overtime. Since I already funnel money off to other accounts, this left me with a take-home paycheck of $105. Not kidding.

The following pay period, I thought everything would be restored and I’d be back up to around $500. No. It was $247 because they hadn’t resumed the stuff.

So I got it restored, and, with overtime, this paycheck is back up to $776. It’ll go back to around $500 for the rest of the year, though.

This trip – I’m going to embark in about 20 minutes! – has been paid up front, so I’m not expecting any huge bills coming due. That’ why I bit the bullet and maxed out on the retirement.

All right, I am out of here. If I get computer access I will update this and let people I’ve arrived in Bangkok or Bhutan (wherever there is access). But I’m not expecting much.

A weekend in town

I’m in the stretch where I’m out of town more weekends than I’m in town and it was so nice to just not have to take a plane or a train anywhere.

Instead, I returned to the little art district again with a couple that I know. I bought some stuff for someone and had a nice pork loin at this German restaurant there. (The couple that I know doesn’t eat Chinese food.)

Attended the birthday party of a 5-year-old, where I again was the only one without children. It was a “Frozen” party. Kind of amusing to see the dads walking around with paper cups imprinted with “Princess in Training.”

The cake was pretty amazing. I do not understand how they make them look like pictures.

But other than those things and working out, I did nothing else out of the ordinary.

The darn 10 pounds that crept up on me in Florida hasn’t gone away yet, despite my stepped-up efforts. I was in there all week but nada.

Sunday has been pretty freaking amazing. I woke up early to hit the gym so I’d be done by FSU’s 8 a.m. kickoff.

Holy cow, what a game. My Slingbox worked mostly fine, and I had enough time at halftime to run down and hit the grocery store.

But man, that was scary. The reception was a little blurry down toward the end; I think the racing of my heart might have created static interference or something. Wow. I was just not believing what I was seeing.

I’ll miss the next two games since I’ll be on the road, and that’s not comforting. It’s really hard to follow college football from a 12-hour time difference away.

Packing for this two-week trip is becoming increasingly complicated. I took the “items to bring” list and Sharpie’d out everything that I have no access to. And now I’m putting out a call to borrow some things. I went to this sports store to try to find hiking poles and they cost a lot more than I thought, but I think I know a couple people from whom I could borrow them.

I did get lucky and got a pair of hiking boots. I wasn’t going to sweat them, but the items list went on and on about them, so I asked someone and as it turns out, his wife wears my size and loaned me what appear to be brand new LL Bean hiking boots. I am going to verify this tomorrow and if they are new, I’m not taking them. I don’t want to be the first to mess up anyone’s boots.

One of the things I’m supposed to bring is seeds, so when I went to the grocery store at halftime, I grabbed some of those. (I also got my VAT tax form filled out, so bonus there.)

Really, I have been super busy all day and it’s all been productive. I woke up early (which means 5:30), was in the gym at 6, in the shower at 8 and in front of the computer at 8:20. Took a nap, got up and ran into work to do some personal emails and stuff. Got home, swam some laps and then hung out in the steam room then decided to hunt for sunblock and bug repellent.

I’m batting .500 on that one, assuming what I got was sunblock. I’m not entirely sure, but it does have a “30” on it and a little cartoon of some kids sitting under a mushroom and staying out of the sun. Somehow, it seemed like sunblock, so I took a chance.

Nothing doing on the bug repellent, though. I saw some of those little bracelet things yesterday in the sporting good store and in retrospect I should have jumped on them. Too late now. I guess I’ll just get bitten.

The packing isn’t going well. I’m basically bringing everything that fits. It’s not good. There’s not much there. Even with the renewed 10 pounds, there’s not a lot that fits.

More on Mongolia

The reality of “What have I done” regarding Bhutan is starting to hit me. I have never, during a time of employment, taken two full weeks off and that in itself is enough to freak me out a little.

And it’s not only two weeks; it’s two weeks of hiking. I printed out the “recommended items to bring” and I’ve never even heard of some of them. I have no idea what I am in for.

There are two weeks between now and when I leave, at least when I leave for Bangkok That’s where I am meeting the group of what appears to be 13 other people, give or take the guide. I got a list of people with visas; it has 14 people but I’m not sure if the tour guide would be on the same list.

Next weekend I will be in town and I am looking forward to it because I have been just go go go for awhile now.

This weekend, as in now, I am in Hong Kong. We have a little get-together here that was planned well before there were any protests. As it is, our group is staying away.

I got in late because I was supposed to work today but the coordinator forgot to schedule me. (Actually, she said I’d told her I wasn’t going to work since I was going out of town, but that is not true. I explicitly said that I would work the OT – I get so few opportunities for it – and then leave town. I’m more than a little irritated that I lose the OT opportunity because someone didn’t listen to me. Anyway, I didn’t find out I wasn’t working until I’d bought the train ticket, so I just stuck with being in Guangzhou in the morning and heading out to HK in the evening.

Really, it wasn’t that bad. I won’t get back until 4:30 or so on Monday and will still need to do workout/laundry, so being in town today gave me the chance to go to the grocery store and cook for the week. That’s the first time in a long time I’ve done that because I’ve been in and out of town so much.

Tomorrow I really don’t know what the plan is, other than there’s a junk boat trip leaving in the morning. I am not going on it – I really thought it was today so I didn’t get reserve a spot. I said I’d lead a hike, so that’s on if anyone shows up for it. I have a destination for the hike, although I could not tell you how long to get there or anything like that. I have a map.

Really, this is a loosely planned weekend and we’re all fine with that. Honestly, if I get a haircut and see a movie, I will feel like I’m ahead of the game. But neither of those is written in stone and I’d be fine if other stuff came up, too.

So far, all I’ve done is eat a decent Thai meal. There’s so much food on Hong Kong.

Oddly, Mongolia had a weird assortment of food. None of what’s billed as “Mongolian BBQ” in the States. Actually, the only place I saw calling itself “BBQ” promoted Kansas BBQ specifically.

A place called Bull’s had been recommended to me and I went there, but it turned out to be a nice hot pot place. Those, however, aren’t worth it if you’re solo because you order each thing individually and it feeds way more than one person plus gets really pricey.

The weirdest thing food-wise about Mongolia was that there were so very many Korean restaurants. I have no idea what the Korean influence is/was on Mongolia, but it was all over Ulaan Bataar. One of the main road was even called Seoul Street. There was Korean food all over the place, plus Korean handicraft stores, etc.

Another thing permeating UB was karaoke. Oh, my. I do not get the Asian infatuation with karaoke. I don’t get anybody’s infatuation with karaoke, really, but it seems there are, proportionally speaking, more Asian who love it, certainly more than Americans. I mean, we are talking three places on one block.

Heck, there was even one Korean vegan karaoke place that advertised “alcohol-free” karaoke. I did not even think that was possible.

Another thing that I noticed right off about Ulaan Bataar was that there are a abnormally high number of Priuses. Almost immediately upon leaving the airport, I kept noticing a Prius here and a Prius there. They were right-side vehicles. It was so weird I asked about it.

Apparently Toyota is one of the few dealers that offers right-hand drive cars, which are popular in Mongolia. Why I do not quite understand because they drive on the right side of the road.

Not all of the cars were right-side ones, though. Mongolia is the first country I’ve been in where I noticed that the cars were both right- and left-side drive ones, and it wasn’t like either one had way more than the other. It seemed about even.

The Prius thing was just weird. There aren’t that many people in UB, but at any point I could look and see about three Priuses. Considering how expensive they are in the U.S., I just don’t see how it’s possible that they cost he same there.

The camp owner had one, but it was strictly for city driving. The other car was a 4-by-4 (which was needed) and it was a left-hand drive vehicle.

I cannot imagine switching from a right-hand drive to a left-hand drive in the course of a day.

Steppeing off the grid

Back from three days of horseback riding in Mongolia! Quite an adventure.

It wasn’t what I expected, though. I’m not really sure what that was, but I was a bit taken aback when the owner of Stepperiders came and met me at an Irish pub (there’s always one) and then drove me 40 kilometers  to the boonies.

Granted, I had no idea, really, what to expect, but I really did expect running water and access to electricity. I had neither.  This wasn’t a problem; it was just unexpected.

As it turned out, the high season had really just ended and I was the only tourist there. Save for Buena and Gana, the two locals, and Rob, an American volunteer working there, I was it. No electricity, no running water, no other tourists. The address of the place is simply the latitude and longitude coordinates. A fantastic way to get away from it all.

Mongolia is really a beautiful country and very rural. From what Rob told me (he was the only English speaker), there are about three million people in the country, and half of those live in Ulan Bataar, the capital. The people are really nice, but it’s not a place full of people.

Where I was – and pretty much any camp in Mongolia – was made up of gers, which are the round structures in which Mongolians live. They’re sort of tents that house a family (or in my case, five beds) and a wood stove. There is a circle of clear plastic (or something) at the top to let in light. There is no electricity, although one of the homes I visited had a car battery hooked up for power.

They’re relatively warm and windproof, which worked for me. I had one all to myself, as did the American volunteer and the two Mongolians. There was also a much larger ger used as a dining hall and another small one used as a kitchen.

For me, it was very PC-like, and a cross of working both at Hope Village and the ranch. I had no shower, ate in a round tent and had horses. It was fantastic.

Rob, the volunteer, told me later that I was the most unique volunteer he’d seen in his time there. (He was doing research on Mongolian horsemen.) I was into everything: helping with the cooking, cleaning, taking down a ger, etc. It just seemed the thing to do.

Yes, taking down a ger. On my first day riding, we had to forgo an afternoon ride in order to completely take down one of the structures, getting the camp ready for the winter. It was quite a different experience. The thing goes together so well, it was fascinating to see how it fit and what it was made of.

On that, the answer was invariable fur of some sort: camel, yak, sheep, goat – they had it all. Lots of wool items to choose from, and even the mattresses were made of packed animal hair of some sort.

Riding was a bit scary but turned out fine. I wore a helmet for the first time and it kept falling down over my face, but it did shield the sun. Fortunately, it didn’t have the opportunity to protect my noggin because I never fell or lost footing.

Mongolians didn’t invent horses, but they did invent everything related to them. Calvary, tack, etc., I’m pretty sure it all dates back to them. I think the kids grow up on horses; everyone can ride.

It was pretty cool to see Buena galloping past, a big herding stick in his hand and just charging at full speed while standing in the stirrups. He could also swoop down and pick up a rock from the ground without maiming himself, which impressed me.

Gana, too, was an amazing horsewoman. She was a bit impatient with my first horse, who was “calm.” Apparently this is a euphemism for “lazy,” because it took forever to get him (Mongolians only ride the stallions) to gallop, although he finally did. My second steed, on the last day, refused to do anything quicker than a trot.

 

Riding across the steppes was really amazing. (A “steppe” is apparently the mountain and the valley combined.) The weather was changing and the green had mostly turned to brown.  Colorful it wasn’t, but it was still beautiful. We saw a bunch of ground critters – marmots, I think they called them – and two foxes. And one random cat, which is probably doomed to become fox (or wolf) food at some point in the near future.

The second day, it was just Gana and me, because the two boys took the 100-head herd on the start of the winter migration. Apparently everyone in the area gathers up most of their animals – horse, cow, sheep, goat – and they travel about 200 kilometers east, to a place with a better winter climate. All totaled, this makes for thousands of animals slowly moving. Rob’s plan was to go the first day, return and then leave two days later, when all the area farmers’ animals were to be gathered.

I’ve no idea if that went through, but he did get off around 11 a.m. and then returned back at 4 p.m. the same day.

 

He was a good person to have around, because I really would have been at a loss communication-wise. For example, one of the delicacies in Mongolia is fermented mare’s milk. Every horse owner (which means everyone) has their own recipe, and it looks just like milk (albeit milk that’s been sitting out.)  Without translation, I would have had no warning about what it was and might have expected something normal tasting. No. It was absolutely horrible. Gana drank something like four bowls full each day we went, but I barely managed to keep down a couple of sips. It had three tastes. The first and third were manageable, but oh, that one in the middle. Nasty.

The food was plain but right up my alley. Carrots, cabbage, onion, garlic. Add either rice or pasta for a dish or a soup and that was it. Almost exactly what I eat anyway.

Since we had no electricity, we ate by candlelight and then Rob challenged me to a chess game. Over the course of three days, I wound up winning three games to one, which is still funny to me because, even though I don’t exactly play chess a lot, I think I’ve won a total of one game before in my life, and that would have been against a Moroccan child.

Rob was a good guide, too, although, on the last day when it was just him and me (Gana was hung over off fermented mare’s milk), we got a bit lost in trying to find our way back to the camp. The steppes really did look alike and it was hard to get a grasp on where you were. And the last day, everything took forever because the horses were so lazy.

They’d kept 10 back from the migrating herd, and my guess is the ones chosen were too slow to keep up with the group. Man, they took FOREVER.  At one point, after having saddle problems, Rob just up and walked, hauling the horse behind him. And I, on horseback, couldn’t get my mount to catch up – that’s how lazy the pair was.

The trip was fantastic, though, and very surreal in a way. I mean, a week before, I’d been in America and then suddenly I stepped back in time, and way, way far off the grid.

I was glad to have scheduled in one night at a hotel prior to my departure, though. On the way up, I’d overnighted in the Beijing airport, and then had three days of no running water. Seeing the Ramada Inn, with its four pillows, huge tub and breakfast buffet, was a sight for sore eyes.

I wound up bringing Rob with me, just briefly. He had stuff to do in town so I offered the use of the hotel’s shower. His eyes lit up and he thanked me profusely over and over again.

Next up is a trip to Hong Kong, which could wind up being more adventurous than Mongolia, what with the protests and everything. And after that, I’ll head to Bhutan.

This is a great starting point for once-in-a-lifetime trips.