Sunday, April 3, 2011

From bibimbap to buuz

What a long trip! 28 hours after I left home I put my heavy suitcases down in my new home, almost at midnight local time. My charming host, Odnoo, had had to stay awake a lot longer than usual.

Something unforeseen always happens in Mongolia: There was no one to meet me at the airport. I looked around not really knowing what to do, but I did have a list with "emergency" phone numbers from Projects Abroad, the organisation who has arranged my stay here. A friendly looking man saw my bewilderment and asked if he could help me, for instance by making a phone call. So that way I got to know that the people who were supposed to meet me had had a flat tyre on their way to the airport ...

So here I am now, in a residential area in the Bayanzurkh district in Ulaanbaatar. I have my own room in a 3-room apartment with all commodities, wireless internet included. It's about a 30 minute walk to the city center. Yes, there is a bus, but traffic is hopeless (a lot worse than Brussels), so it's probably quicker to walk.

Odnoo is a Mongolian language teacher by profession and people from all over the world have been her students or have stayed in her spare room, also a Luxembourger!


What on earth do I mean by "From bibimbap to buuz"? Well, the traditional Korean dish is bibimbap, and I had it on the plane yesterday. Tonight Odnoo had prepared buuz, the traditional Mongolian dish.

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