2022.10.31. – Slippery slopes

Since it’d been snowing yesterday, the roads were covered in snow and ice today – a slippery hell.

Normally, this would be a nightmare for me (and it kinda still is), but with my ‘new’ knees, I am not nearly as terrified as I would have been a year ago. Still, I am not happy about it and I am not looking forward to several months of this. I just don’t understand why Mongolians can’t solve such a seemingly huge problem.

Cause it’s not just the snow and ice, it’s the type of pavement they use and the type of material their stairs are made of – smooth aka super slippery. It’s really a safety hazard. And I am not exaggerating, I was watching the locals walk today, trying to see how they overcome this problem: and they shuffle. That’s the solution: drag your feet and hope you won’t fall over this way. My shoes will have no soles in two weeks at this rate. There were very few people who seemed to be enjoying the ice, and they were basically ice-skating on the pavement. I guess if you know how to ice-skate, it can be fun. But if you’re just trying to get to your destination, walking, it’s annoying.

It was also pretty cold today, about -7 degrees or so, and so it’s no wonder my thighs and face were freezing. But it could be a lot worse – and it will be, I have no doubt.

Mongolian Aurora borealis aka the lights reflecting on the snow from the library windows

Icicles are a pretty common sight now

My class this morning was not my favourite one so far but it was necessary to get it over with – since Mongolians don’t really learn much about European history, let alone the history of Hungary, I told them some key points of our history and we learned how to say years and dates meanwhile, also mentioning Hungarian bank holidays and such - October 23 and November 1 being pretty relevant rn. And now they know.

We’ve also finally been to the flat we’d been wanting to check out for about a week now, and we liked it quite a lot, so we’ll probably end up renting it. It’s literally 3 minutes away from where we are staying now, so the location is almost perfect, and it has a well-equipped kitchen.

In the evening, - and I can’t believe this has finally happened – I managed to convince my husband to come with me to the gym. He did 60 mins of the stationary bike (slow pace, but steady!) while I did 30 mins on the bike next to him and then some knee and shoulder workout. We’ve also met the diplomat guy in the gym, although at first I hadn’t even recognised him as he was sweaty from just having run a 10k and he’s usually looking pretty neat.

After our gym session, we went to Good Price to get some groceries, then tried to hail a taxi but they seemed to not want to stop for anyone (we saw two Mongolian couples trying to hail them in vain as well) so we ended up walking home, hoping to get home in one piece over the sheet of ice on the roads. (Okay, it wasn’t that bad, the area of the university is actually much worse than some places along Sukhbaatar square.)

We've found an arcade in Shangri-La - gotta go back sometime!

Haribo that actually tastes like cocoa  - weird but good