Today, after spending the whole morning inside, not doing much,
I convinced my husband to go exploring in the afternoon.
First, we stopped at
the closest mall which we’d known has a café to get bubble tea, or boba. I’ve
been wanting to try this for ages but back in Hungary, it just seemed like a
superfluous luxury, and since coming here, we just never had the chance really.
However, it just occurred to me as we were leaving the flat that this could be
a stellar opportunity and so we stopped for my first ever boba tea. It was
waaay too sweet and I didn’t like that they didn’t have any dairy-free options
(lucky I am not a hardcore vegan) and so I had to settle for drinking some milk
today in my tea. (If I ever drink bubble tea again, though, I’ll be sure to
research places that offer milk-free or at least plant-milk options.) I did
like the bubbles and the pops in it though! I went for a strawberry pop bubble
tea and it was actually enjoyable, once I got over how overly sweet it was (and
I was almost sick by the end from the sweetness, tbh, even though my husband
helped me drink it – he didn’t really like it though).
On our way to Shangri-La Mall (which was one of the 2 places
we wanted to visit today), slurping at the bubble tea, as we were walking by
Sukhbaatar square, we saw that the stands there were still up (we’d seen them
on Friday on our way back from the National Library), people selling their
products, locals mingling and shopping. We decided to stop and check it out
(well, I wanted to check it out and my husband indulged my request). They were mostly
selling clothes (we will need some warm Mongolian clothes sooner or later, but
we weren’t going to spend a lot of money today) and foodstuffs (mostly animal
products, so we steered clear of those stands). It had a nice atmosphere
though, vendors selling their products, people chatting and buying stuff,
children running and biking around, renting these fun bikes (they are called bringóhintó
in Hungary and I have no idea how they are called in any other language tbh),
the sun shining. It was just nice to stand there for a moment and enjoy the
day.
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| Kids playing at Sukhbaatar square |
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| Vendors at the square - how cool is that blue camo coat? |
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| They have these sad cabbage patches right next to the biggest roads - so weird |
Then we walked on towards Shangri-La – my husband’s first
time there. We really just went there so that he could see some ‘Western’
culture and familiar stores. As usual, there were quite a few non-Mongolian
people in that area and inside the mall, and it’s so funny because some of them
will stare at you shamelessly, probably because you are – just like them – not Mongolian.
It’s weird when it’s not even the Asians staring (which they do, although maybe
a bit less than I’d felt in the first week of being here). We found a shop that
is a bit like a Flying Tiger and Pepco crossover – random but useful little
things and trinkets and décor stuff, fairly cheap. I think it’s a Korean shop,
not that it makes much of a difference. Also, all the shops here were also
super-done-up for Halloween; I’ve even seen a few dementors in a Samsung store
(first traces of HP in Mongolia, btw, they don’t seem to sell toys or merch
anywhere here, I’ve been looking!). But yeah, spiders and severed plastic hands
and cobwebs and Jack-o’-lanterns everywhere. What is it with Mongolia and
Halloween?
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| D-dementor, dementor! |
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| We just put it in soup at home, and in Asia it's a delicacy. |
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| What an appetizing Nutella stand |
After strolling around the Mall and showing my husband where
the Sports Club is (just so he knows where I disappear to a few times a week),
we went outside to go see the amusement park too. I’d been really excited about
it for some time now, since I could see the rides from the swimming pool
overlooking the park and also from taxis a few times we were in those parts of
the city. I’d known we wouldn’t try any of the rides, I just wanted to see them
up close. The whole park had a nice, if a bit odd and deserted atmosphere.
There were huge spaces of nothing at all but dried out grass and a few small
trees. This place really could do with a renovation and a dozen new rides. The
ones that they had looked fun though, if old and very unsafe. It was great to
just walk around in the sunny and warm weather and see people laughing and
having fun. Btw today it was about 12 degrees, which is kinda warm even
in Hungary at the end of October – definitely not what one would expect from
Mongolia (especially since it was snowing less than two days ago).
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| Two kids on a ride with the ferris wheel in the background. |
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| I would love to try this (only it's probably very unsafe) |
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| The entrance is so fun! |
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| There's this KingKong bust and a castle too, but that was closed now, under construction. |
Once we started to get a bit tired and chilly from being
outside and walking (and the sun sank lower and lower on the horizon, giving
off less warmth), we went back inside Shangri-La because I also wanted to take
my husband to Not-So-Good Price. He had a field day with all the sweets and
snacks – as I’d known he would, and we also got a pizza at the back of the
store. It was really cheesy but smelled and looked great (and I was kinda
hungry) so I broke my – usually kinda strict – rule of no animals yet again and took a
small slice. I tried scraping off most of the cheese but it still had cheese on
it. It was good though. So milk in my bubble tea and cheese on my pizza slice –
I think my body has no idea what has just happened. I really do not break my
diet, at least I almost never do. It’s usually just not worth it. I don’t feel
guilty over it or anything, especially as it happens so rarely, but I am also
not happy thinking about all that dairy wreaking havoc in my body. Good thing I
am (probably still) not lactose-intolerant. Unlike my husband who will likely
suffer from his choice of lunch. Anyway, the ginger ale we got to go with the
pizza was amazing – very ginger-y, very refreshing.
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| Our shopping cart at (not so) Good Price |
Forgoing my plans of stopping at the Sports Club for a quick
workout (some cardio, maybe) before going home, I decided to just walk home
together with my husband and we carried the groceries we got – we even bought a
dragon fruit to try.
In the evening, it was just chilling at home (I spent some
time reading, and not fanfics but an actual book (okay, e-book), finally). We
haven’t had a working WiFi in two days now and it’s grating on my nerves, not
being able to watch YT videos – I am not sure I’d noticed how much I depended
on my daily (or maybe every-other-daily) serotonin that comes from YT shorts or
content from the channels I follow. And it’s not like I am going to waste our
mobile data on watching YT videos. So it’s only Spotify, Messenger, and offline
things for now.
Btw it’s so weird that back at home, today was a National
Holiday with shops closed and all – and here, even though we actually
remembered today was October 23, life just went on. And we went shopping.
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