2022.11.03-04. – Becoming registered aliens

So I got an email Thursday morning that we had to go to the Immigration Office ASAP and get our pictures taken or they wouldn’t give us residence permits.

Saya was like ‘they just called me that you haven’t been, you should have gone there, I told you this’ and I was (to myself) like ‘nope, you haven’t, nobody ever mentioned having to go there for photos, but fine, I’ll just drop everything and go, I guess’. But really, nobody ever mentioned this to me, and I’ve had several lists with things to do and get done. I had even asked him if there was anything else I had to do or just wait for my permit. There was one email (from before our arrival) that said we would need to go to Immigration to have our fingerprints taken but since we’d had our fingers scanned at the airport upon arrival, before entering the country, I figured we wouldn’t need to get it done again – and I was right about that. But nothing at all about pictures. Btw they have also taken photos of us at the airport, and I have also sent in at least 3 different documents where there was an ID pic (in colour) attached to the sheet, both for my husband and me. So who would have thought that 4 pictures wouldn’t be enough and we would need to go there in person and get a 5^th one. Not me.

Well anyway, postponing all plans for Thursday, we had a nice early brunch and then proceeded to hunt down a driver who speaks English and would be willing to take us to the Immigration Office which is pretty far from the city centre. Luckily, the expat group on FB had some recommendations, and one of the people we’d messaged texted back quite soon, saying she was free to come and help us. So she took us there – btw, it was really funny, her kid was sleeping on the front seat, kneeling on the floor of the car, upper body draped all over the seat, buried in his little coat, and until she actually pointed it out, we hadn’t even noticed the boy, just thought it was her coat on the seat or something.

Getting used to snow-covered, bare mountains surrounding the whole city I live in.

The whole Immigration Office experience was bizarre and very Mongolian (apart from the fact that we did not have to pay this time, which was a nice surprise). We first entered the building at the main entrance and the security guy told us to get a number, but the two options listed on the machine were not what we were there for, so we ended up walking to the back of the building (as per Saya’s instructions) and going inside a back building with no marking on the door, right next to a kindergarden. We went to the upper floor but nobody was there and it was dark, so then we went downstairs and asked around there, but nobody working there seemed to speak English. At the Immigration Office. Finally, a lady who did speak some English turned up, and told us to go to the other back entrance. So we went to the other side of that nondescript building, and since the only door there led to the Sports Centre, we gave it a go. Again, no signs, nothing indicating we were at the right place, only a few sports trophies behind a glass and a flight of stairs. So we went upstairs and found an office with an open door, told them what we were there for, and they indicated (not said, they didn’t speak English here either) that we should wait. In a few minutes, one of the women came out with a camera, and took our pictures standing against the light green wall of the corridor, then asked for our passports, administered some data, and kept typing away on her computer. She did not dismiss us so we stood there for about a minute and then I asked if we were finished and they just nodded, so we left. And that was it. The whole thing is just weird, but at least we got it done.

The stairwell to the office we were looking for.

How anyone's supposed to know this is where they take pictures for Immigration is beyond me.

Our driver took us back to the city centre, dropping us off at Emart for our weekly grocery shopping, asking if we wanted her to wait for us again but we told her she shouldn’t, and paid her before saying goodbye. She was actually nice, helpful, and she spoke good enough English, so we hope to hire her again if we need a driver or a Mongolian guide in the future.

In Emart, we mostly bought snacks tbh, but also some kitchen staples (instant ramen, a must have here, and some things we ran out of like tofu and bread and veggies). I am so looking forward to finally buying a few plants, even if I have no idea how I’ll keep them alive if we leave for a month or more in January, but I miss having green things around a lot. Nothing is green here, which is understandable in November, I guess, but at home we would at least have grass and evergreens, and my lovely succulents and green babies in the house. Here, bare trees and pavement and concrete, and bare windowsills. It’s a bit depressing. But I don’t want to get plants until we don’t move into the flat we’ll stay at permanently while here, bc I don’t want to have to move those too.

Icy but not completely frozen-over river near Emart.

These massive icicles on twigs are all over the city and I'd never seen such a thing in Europe
(except for next to ski slopes, maybe)

ChupaChups drinks! (The grapes one was awesome, imo - my husband says the orange one too, I just don't like fizzy orange drinks like Fanta)

On Friday, I had to get up early for my morning lecture – such a cruel thing, both towards the students and me, having a 9 am lecture on Friday. I went in almost an hour earlier again, to print stuff out, open everything, make sure I have internet and an extension cord so that I can charge my laptop (with having a Zoom meeting and sharing my screen and all, it would get close to switching off by the end of the lecture), and read through my notes once before the lecture; which was, sadly but not unexpectedly, pretty underwhelming. I am still a bit (a lot) insecure about giving lectures, tired and anxious, and the students don’t ask any questions or answer any of my questions, at all. It’s as if I am talking to myself. About topics I am not very familiar with. Trying to fill 90 minutes. By the end I got kind of excited, talking about the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area and the Erasmus programme and mobility and such, since this is really close to my heart (education and mobility, come on! Let alone I have personal experiences to fuel my excitement). But the students either didn’t get excited or just kept it to themselves. Anyway, I will be very happy to have my lectures over with next Friday.

My class right after the lecture went much better. We learned some new verbs, practiced conjugation, and built sentences, which really got them animated. Not as much as me showing them Hungarian coins though. They asked what the currency in Hungary was and I told them it was forint, remembering I must have had some in my wallet, so I took a 1000 bill and a few coins out, letting them touch and inspect them. They got so excited about the coins, saying those were really rare to see in Asia (here in Mongolia they only use bills, and now I suspect it may be the case in other Asian countries as well). When I go back to Hungary, I might pack a few coins for each of them – they have almost no value, a 5 or 10 forint coin, but I think they would like them. (I would hand them out now only I don’t have enough for each student.)

Once I was done with university for the week, I persuaded my husband to walk to Loving Hut for lunch – simply because the weather was sunny and nice outside, if a bit crisp (nowadays, temperatures may go up to around 0 degrees during the day, plummeting down to -15 or so during the night). We finally had the chance to try the milk soup with dumplings (last time they didn’t have it); it was basically hot milk and dumplings – nice enough but nothings spectacular. Their burger (basically a bigger sandwich) that my husband chose for himself was really fresh and tasty though, definitely worth going back for. And I also want to get some coffee and cake there some time, since vegan cakes are rare and I have been craving them for weeks (okay, months) now. But that has to be a separate visit bc if we go there to eat, we get too full to get desserts too.

My husband said those houses look like the iconic ones from Stockholm and now I can't unsee it.

Icicle formations on trees still fascinate me

Random polar bear statues!

Milk soup with dumplings

Husband found a leaflet about the University of Szeged on a corridor of NUM

After lunch, we had a quick stop at the State Department Store to get some toilet paper (that we’d forgotten to buy in Emart the previous day), then headed back home. It was getting pretty cold by this time, the sun low over the horizon (okay, hidden behind the tall buildings, but it was sunset and I like poetic expressions). Just as we were walking by the main building of the university, I got a call from Saya, saying he had our residence permits. That was a nice surprise as he’d said he would get them next Monday, but as we were already there, we quickly went to his office to get the cards. They are basically like ID cards, but instead of ‘residence permit’ they are apparently called ‘certificate of alien registration’. So we are aliens (I know it's a synonym for foreigner but it's still funny af to me), now registered in Mongolia. Yay! The cards are valid until July 1, which means we should be able to go back to Hungary for the winter break and come back using those cards instead of having to get a new round of visas. Also, I can finally open a bank account here, but since it was already past 5 pm on Friday, there was no chance we could open one now – guess we’ll go to the bank on Monday after my class.

We spent the evening chilling out at home – I was so exhausted from not having slept enough and from just the whole week in general; of course, that wasn’t enough to make me go to bed at a sensible time, so it was almost 2 am by the time I said goodbye to my friends on Messenger and climbed under the covers. (Time zones really suck sometimes, having a 7-hour difference to my friends at home means I have to stay up very late to chat OR they have to stay up very late to chat (which we often do, having very unhealthy sleeping schedules).