Cherry Blossom in Spring

The stopover at Hyatt Regency Incheon was a treat before I returned home. The morning call woke me up at 6 o'clock. I waited in line at 6:30 in front of Cafe' 8 for my buffet breakfast. Many early birds like me had a morning fight to catch at Incheon Airport.

From the service to the food at Hyatt Regency Incheon, I was very impressed by the win-win strategy of Korean Airline and Hyatt Incheon to join hands to showcase the hospitality of Koreans to welcome passengers, even for just one night. Incheon is three hours away from Ulaanbaatar by flight. I wish Ulaanbaatar could be as developed next time I visit Mongolia.

Upon arrival at Incheon Airport, I became obsessed in observing friendly Koreans at work at the airport at the morning hours. I put Ulaanbaatar behind and didn't spend a second contemplating on what I did in the beautiful country of the blue sky in the past three weeks.

Koreans at Incheon Airport were trained to speak Mandarin to make the on-the-move customers feel like home. They provided instant solution to customers at the baggage check. Take myself for example, I had a big bottle of Chengiskhan Volka I bought at Chingiskhan airport in my hand-carried luggage, I was advised to go to small baggage counter to recheck-in. The immigration process took me 10 seconds to go through, comparing to 3 minutes at Chengiskhan Airport. No wonder Seoul Incheon ranked No.1 airport of the world in 2009.

Arriving at Tao-yuan Airport, I had a new impression about Taiwan. It was so lush green with big trees, small tress, in-door plants everywhere. Just thinking about no more heavy overcoat needed to stroll carefully on the icy road like an astronaut walking on the moon, I felt the freedom. The sporadic cherry blossom on the free way from the airport to Taipei city was alluring. It's Spring!

As soon as I dropped the luggage at home at noon, I went out to borrow five books from Taipei city library and five books from Hsin-tien city library to compensate the reading I had missed. Feeling great with a handbag full of books, I walked into my favorite Cafe' Corner in the neighborhood and ordered a big cup of tapioca milk tea and started reading voraciously.

Life resumed to its tempo before my adventure in Mongolia, but it wouldn't be the same from now on. The experiences I gained in Ulaanbaatar made me a new person. I knew the coldness, I knew the people in the coldness, I knew fellow toastmasters and friends in the coldness. I know I would be extremely busy sorting out thousands of photos, writing up travelogue in Mongolia, getting ready for Chinese New Year Holidays in one week. I'd like to express my gratitude to my toastmasters friends in Mongolia to make my life meaningful and joyful, thank you all!

PS: As I looked at the smiling face of a Mongol lass on horseback on the cover page of Mongolia: Nomad Empire of Eternal Blue Sky by Carl Robinson on my desk, my mind flew back to the frozen land of Ulaanbaatar. Sain Baina Uu Ulaanbaatar!

Sayorana Mongolia

It has been the most wonderful and meangingful toastmasters journey in my life. In the past three weeks, I have met more than 800 Mongols, from first graders, acrobat dancers, ex-prisoners, college students, business elites, medical doctors, university professors, to government employees, at more than a dozen educational and entertaining occasions. Mongolia filled my luggage with books, delicacies, and souvenirs. Mongols filled my heart with passion, love, and memories.

Enkhee prepared super yummy French toast for breakfast at 9:30 this morning. Can you imagine I taught Enkhee to make French toast three weeks ago and she made better French toast than me now? I guaranteed the success of Enkhee's restaurant, if she wished to open one. Enkhee had culinary talents and she was curious about adding flavors and varieties to her dinner table. Tobbi seemed to know that I was about to leave, he snuggled in my arms most of the time. I was as generous as usual to share with Tobi my food in plate.

After breakfast, Enkhee took out two farewell gifts from the drawer, to my big surprise, a beautiful matching set of bamboo necklace and two earrings she bought in Cambodia, and a black embroidered handbag with brick and silver Kazakhstan geometric motif. I was overwhelmed with her gracious gestures.

At noon, Enkhee prepared farewell lunch, mashed potato, steam rice, coleslaw salad, beef stirred fry. We toasted a bottle of Fusion beer to wish each other luck in the future. Enkhee and I shared many things in the past weeks, from recipes, clothes, shoes, to childhood memories. I wish we could continue exchanging emails in the cyber space. After lunch, I put on an outfit with silver accessories I got in Ulaanbaatar to leave UB upon Enkhee's suggestion.

At two o'clock, Ganbayar came to pick me up and drove me to Chengiskhan Airport. To be honest, I couldn't wait to leave the freezing Ulaanbaatar for a change. But, when Ganbayar handed me a Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of Mongolian Risk Management Association, Office of the President of Mongolia, and Academy of Management, I almost burst into tears. There was no way I could thank Ganbayar enough for connecting me with many people in Mongolia. Mr. Ganbayar, I thank you and I admire your determination to serve your country. One day, your personal legend will be recoginized like your grandfather's by the people in Mongolia.

Before my plane KE-0868 departed from Ulaanbaatar Buyant-Ukha Airport at 5:50PM, I was in fact three hours ahead of time. I didn't waste a single second shopping for souvenirs, vodka, key chains, postcards, poker cards, and handicrafts. At the last souvenir shop, I spent my last tugrug, and made friends with the young and pretty shop owner. With her consent, I found a chair in front of the shop, browsed all English books on the shelves in the sun. Dr. Sharav Bold's books on medicine and health caught my attention.

Being a pharmacist, I'm interested in ethnic medicines, Tibetan medicine, Mongolian medicine, even I was trained mainly in the field of western medicine. In "Insight Into the Secret of a Mongolian Healthy lifestyle", Dr. Bold wrote about four seasons and five colors, black and yellow diet in Spring; white in Summer; green in Autumn; and red in Winter (October to January) and the magic of Khalkh Tea (Mongolian tea). In the past three weeks, my diet was in red, mutton, beef, horse meat, beets, carrots, and I drank a lot of Khalkh tea.

In "History and Development of Traditional Mongolian Medicine", Dr. Bold talked about four skills preferred by women, including honest behavior, wise words, nice appearance, and sewing skills. And Mongolians glorify women as they are deft and skillful in sewing, wise and clear in speaking, holy and fair in actions, of kind and calm character, passionate and sympathetic, with sweet and melodic voice, with smooth and light steps. In my eyes, Mongolian women are beautiful and invincible. While taking care of family chores, many of them also win the bread for their families.

"In modern Mongolia, the biggest health treats are cardiovascular and renal problems among Mongolian men", I was told. Mongolian men eat a lot of meat, drink a lot of vodka, and smoke a lot of cigarettes. Smokers could be found everywhere in UB, in the cars, in the restaurants, both private and public places.

When KE-0868 took off at 6PM, I gave Ulaanbaatar a last look in the sunset! What a beautiful city of one million residents in the big landlocked country! How much it would and could change in the next five years!

With 15 strategic mining projects of coal, copper, gold, uranium, on going, such as Oyu Tolgoi and Tavan Tolgoi, Mongolia would certainly be the fastest developing country in the world. Not to mention there would be a huge government investment in infrastructure, including a second railway between Beijing and Ulaanbaatar, a new freeway in Mongolia, a second power station and a second International airport. The GDP of Mongolia would be estimated to double each year to reach US$15,000 in 2015 from US$2,000 in 2010.

The flight from Ulaanbaatar to Inchoen was smooth. The young man sitting next to me was from the Philippines. We both ordered fried fish and bean curd with egg fried rice as the main dish. I loved the side dish of smoked salmon, but the Filipino lad didn't have a bite of the salmon. I was not sure what he did in Ulaanbaatar for two days vacation or business (?), I knew he would need to fly four countries before he got home, Mongolia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines. I joked about the mileage he could collect from his zigzag way to get home.

Before 10PM (Korean Time), I got on the Hyatt Regency Incheon Shuttle Bus. The clean and flat six-lane roads in Incheon were a big contract to the bumpy and dusty ones in UB. I thought of the joke told by a Mongolian friend. A Japanese visitor asked the tour guide if the persons making the roads were in prison when he first saw the wrecked roads in UB. His Mongolian tour guide answered, "Sir, on the contrary, they are moving up the ladder in government office."

Everybody knew about the long winter in Mongolia was detrimental to maintain good conditions of the roads, but it would be hard not to believe that the politicians and businessmen must have profited a great deal from the road construction. And it's not a uncommon practice (or fault) in developing countries, from anthropological point of view. Homo sapiens would only change their behaviors when the society accumulates certain amount of wealth, moral, discipline, and security, to encourage and appreciate the altruistic ways of life. It would take much longer time to evolve, culturally than economically, for any given country in the world!

It was a fast ride from Incheon Airport to Hyatt Regency Incheon. Before 10:20PM, I checked into Room 1059. After a curious tour of Hyatt for 20 minutes, I retired in bed for the night, watching TV till 11:30PM, from CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, TV Australia, to Japanese BS 1 and 2.

PS: There are 63 channels in UB in every language, but not Japanese. Why? Where are Japanese? Toyota Landcrusers are everywhere in UB.

Winter Wonderland

After a Japanese style breakfast, miso soup au vermicelle with frozen bean curd (stored on the balcony), Enkhee and I went downtown UB to explore more about the household market in Mongolia. We got off the cab in front of the State Department Store on the Peace Avenue and walked into a souvenir boutique where housed many beautiful authentic Mongolian handicrafts.

The first shop was usually the place I lingered the most, I spent about one hour thinking and rethinking what to buy to add to my exiting overloaded wardrobe at home. In the end, I bought three colorful Kazakhstan bags of different sizes to go with the Islamic style leather shoes I bought in Lahore and Casablanca.

Then we walked in a big jewelry market (similar to the weekend jade market in Taipei) full of small stands of individual jewelers of gold, silver, and precious stones. The market was full of women at different ages, both sellers and buyers. I found it a good place to study the likes of dislikes of Mongolian women as birthday, wedding and/or anniversary presents.

With no specific shopping goals in mind, Enkhee and I went through shop from shop on the Peace Avenue. At a winter wear shop, I found a camel color belly wrap and a pair of socks made of camel for my husband. Enkhee was curious why I thought of my husband at the last minute. She always placed her son and her husband first when shopping. Well, I would say, my husband and I were two identities. I didn't know what to buy for him, neither did he for me.

At 1:30PM, we walked into Chez Bernard, Enkhee ordered Omelette Veggie and I ordered Omelette Mushroom and we drank two bottles of Tiger beer to applaud our morning achievements. No matter how freezing cold it might be outside, it was so sunny and warm inside of chez Bernard. Enkh told me it would be really nice to see pedestrians walking on the streets in summer. I tried to imagine the empty road trees with green leaves on, people walking beneath, in colorful clothes laughing and talking. I told Enkhee it would be another splendid scene if she could come visit me in Taipei, sitting by the big window of Hotel Royal Taipei, looking at the traffic on Chung-shan North Road.

After lunch, we hung around in the restaurant for another one hour before Enkhee received a call from Dembee to inform us of the farewell dinner at Hotel Chengkiskan. Enkh suggested we walk across the street to visit the Souvenir House at the corner, I seconded her proposal to cross the street 20 meters away.

The Souvenir House was warm and comfortable. I mush have tried all the woolen caps and bags on display before I settled for two caps and one matching bag. Enkhee was excited to find a bag of rock salt for my cuisine. I didn't buy it, because I was not curious in salt. I was from an island surrounded by ocean. Salt could be found everywhere. On the contrary rock salt must be precious for people of landlocked Mongolia.

With both hands full of shopping bags, Enkhee asked me if I would like to take a bus to the Hotel Chengkiskhan. I said, "why not?" Finally I got the chance to use the public transportation in UB and I could observe people on the bus. We got on the Bus 52 in front of Souvenir House. Enkhee paid to the bus stewardess 600 tugrugs on the bus (300 tugrugs a person). I enjoyed the short moment sitting on the snail bus on the Peace Avenue, looking at the Ulaanbaatar moving backwards.

The 500 meters walk from the bus stop to Hotel Chengiskhan was a challenge. Enkhee kindly told me she was born in the neighborhood and she knew the area very well. When we walked down a slope in the park, Enkhee told me she used to slide down the slope with the kids when young. I looked back at the slope, imagining me standing on blade sliding down swiftly with joy. Arriving at last at the warm Hotel Chengiskhan was bliss, my feet and hand were frozen painfully. Hotel Chengiskhan didn't change much in the past five years when I first stayed there for four nights in UB in 2004.

I didn't shop at the supermarket of Sky Department Store adjacent to Chengihkhan Hotel in 2004, I took a good at the dairy products counter and sampled as many items as possible this time. I purchased fresh cheese of various flavors. I also bought dried mare milk curd. I am sure my husband would like them.

At the cosmetic counter, Enkhee helped Russians tourists. I knew Enkhee spoke fluent Russian, it was the first time I saw her interact with Russians. At the boots department, we ran into Enkhee's brother and his family. What a surprise it was to meet with Enkhee's beautiful and fashionable sister-in-law. What a small world it was in Ulaanbaatar!

The small and warm farewell dinner party of six took place at Temujin Restaurant on the 5th floor, including Dembee, Deegii, Batbaatar, Ganbayar, Enkhee and me. It was a slow evening for Temujin Restaruant. We were the only table at the corner. And we had a special treatment, including chocolate cakes and assorted fruits for desserts on the house.

During dinner, we saw many young acrobat dancers passed through the restaurant to the main hall where a grand dancing party was held to celebrate the Teacher's Day. My Mongolian friends were shy to join the dancing party. I grabbed a short break to take a few photos of the young acrobat dancers. It was amazing to see how flexible their bodies were. And I wonder if the intensive training at early age would affect the growth of little dancers in the future.

Before the end of the farewell dinner, Deegii gave me a box of silver necklace, earrings and ring, to my surprise. Dembee told me that they gave the token of appreciation to thank me coming all the way to Mongolia! I was speechless! How could I ever thank the toastmasters in Mongolia for their friendship and hospitality. At the end of the dinner, we toasted with six glasses of vodka bottom up to the success of my serving as an ambassador for the Toastmasters program in Ulaanbaatar.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

This is the fourth Tuesday in a row I'm in UB. The daytime is gettng longer. Before long Mongols will be celebrating the Lunar New Year. The Mongolian New Year and Chinese New Year falls on the same day this year, on Valentine's day. Spring is knocking on the door soon! Everybody can take a break in the outdoors after a long freezing Winter.

Enkhee invited me to give a talk to the residents of Betel International in UB. I walked into an isolated apartment of the Betel International in the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar this evening. I was told that most of the residents were ex-prisoners.

Betel is a social network dedicated to restoring marginalized people to productive and independent lifestyles through the Gospel. The seminar room was filled with people. Every person has the bible in his hands. I asked who could recite John 3:16, the only teenage boy raised his hand and answered, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." in Mongolian. I gave him a small container of Chinese tea as a gift.

I was touched by the idea of Betel International, "we believe that if we can make one man whole, he will contribute to making a family whole; and each family made whole is a step towards leading a neighborhood, a city and a nation towards wholeness."

What is it out there?

It was the first day of February, my last week in UB, four days left before I hit the road for home. No matter how low the temperature broadcasted on TV was, I was determined to venture out to see what it was out there. I knew I wouldn't go far, I would be contented to know what the community could offer to the neighborhood of 3000 residents.

I put on the heavy outfit to try my luck at noon. I walked to the supermarket at the corner 100 meters from where I lived, bought a small pack of cookies in order to have small changes in hand just in case I decided to hitchhike a cab to downtown. I walked around the back of the apartment complex, I could identify Enkhee's apartment immediately. The tin rectangular flower pot hung on the balcony looked distinct where the sparrow family would flock together to enjoy the crumble breakfast every morning. After strolling for 500 meters, my hands and feet began frozen. I hated to surrender to the coldness, but I had to find a shelter, and I walked into a small restaurant at a quarter past 12.

I was lucky. The artifical leather cover of the menu was written in Chinese and English. The contents were in Mongol and English. I ordered a cup of coffee, took out "The Gift of CHANGE" by Marianne Williamson from my bag, watched pedestrians, young and old, walking on the street, observed the customers in and out of the restaurant. I clang to the raditor to keep my my feet warm most of the time while reading the book. God must have granted mercy to a poor middle-aged woman from a tropical island in the Pacific Ocean.

The restaurant business was good with patrons from all walks of life, office ladies, policemen, college students. Maybe there were no specific time slots for lunch, afternoon tea, dinner in the cold Mongolia. At a quarter past 3, I ordered a sizzling plate of fried potato with meat to satisfy my curiosity how Mongolians cooked the food. I was not particularly hungry, but I finished everything on the plate. At 4, I paid the bill and walked home.

On my way home, I walked in the internet right across of the supermarket at the corner. It was jam-packed with elementary school kids playing on-line games. All of them were indulged in the same war game. The lady internet shop keeper helped me get on line with window XP, and I tried to receive the emails from family and friends in Taiwan, but to my disappointment, I couldn't decipher the message in Mandarin. My feet began frozen again in less than 30 minutes, and I was eager to quit my adventure in the coldness for the day.