2023.06.06 – 09. – Time to say goodbye

And if you haven’t started singing the song, here I am to remind you that you should.

Since we got back from Seoul on Monday, it’s been mostly about packing, getting ready for our move back home, and saying goodbye. There’s simply no time to mentally process that we’ve just been to Korea. Our minds are in overdrive but hey, this is a busy few weeks.

So Monday was still travel-day and we were exhausted (we even ended up taking a short nap in the afternoon so as to feel a bit more alive). Mostly tidying up that day, and organising the rest of the week.

The actual getting ready and saying goodbye period started on Tuesday. I’ve organised and put into taking home / giving away / throwing away / leaving here categories everything in the living room (mostly my teaching stuff and books). We’ve had lunch with Otgontuya (head of the Foreign Language Centre at the university) in Modern Nomads, as she invited us for a goodbye lunch. I think that’s very nice of her, and we had a good conversation too. She was the person I talked to most at the university, so it was nice to have the opportunity to properly say goodbye to her. She even gave us some small souvenirs (chocolate and some merch with the university logo on them, but they actually look pretty cool: a mug and a small bag, and of course pens and more chocolate). This was also our first time eating at Modern Nomads although it’s a pretty popular restaurant chain in UB for Mongolian food – probably bc Mongolian food has lots of meat which we don’t eat. They do have vegetarian dishes on their menu though, so hubby had a sort of meatless taco bowl, and I had a miso soup. It had pistachio balls in it, and it was really good.

On Wednesday, I had my last class at the embassy and had lunch with the embassy girl who had recently become a good friend. I’ve also built towers of our stuff next to the suitcases and started packing them into the smallest suitcase.

Also got our very last bits of souvenirs on Wednesday after my class.
(and tried to find something suitable for a baby but failed - sorry, R)

On our walk home from the souvenir shop, we noticed that the fountain is finally working
(it's been out of order since October, due to weather conditions I guess)

Most of the packing was done on Thursday. I’ve gathered everything from the kitchen (medicine and kitchen equipment) and packed them, and I’ve also cooked lunch and baked muffins trying to use up our last pieces of veggies and opened things. I’ve put most of the unopened or long-lasting foodstuff into two paper bags and decided to give them to our Mongolian friend/guide Uka. Once the cabinets were mostly empty and organised, I did some cleaning in the kitchen too. Then I did the same thing in the bathroom (much less stuff, and we are still using some of it of course). I’ve also packed our clothes except for the outfits for Friday and Saturday (aka travel day home). In the afternoon, we went for a walk in the amusement park and tried two games in the arcade in ShangriLa Mall, something we’d been putting off since October. Then we had dinner with Uka and his son in Hutong, a good-bye dinner; afterwards, Uka took us home to get the things we decided to give her since we couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) take them home: a microwave, an air purifier, two humidifiers, and a monitor. And the two bags of food. In exchange, she lent us her vacuum cleaner which we really needed so that we could vacuum-pack the winter coats (we got the huge plastic bag for it from my friend at the embassy, but we didn’t have a working vacuum at home to actually suck the air out of it). Once Uka took the things and the vacuum-packing was done, the apartment actually started to look like we were trying to move out. Still lots of stuff out but there’s always Friday. (At this point, I’ve also weighed the suitcases to make sure we still had some space left for the rest of our stuff, and we were about 7 or 8 kgs short of the maximum weight. Not ideal but should be okay.)

Always wanted to try this game!
(I was surprisingly bad at it but hubby was great)

Then came Friday. Last day in UB.

In the morning, I had my last swim practice with the local master’s team and said goodbye to them too. Oyuka, my best friend from the team, gave me three Harry Potter bookmarks, made in Mongolia from leather – really cool. I really hope I’ll see her sometime in the future, somewhere in the world. At the end of the practice, those who didn’t have to hurry to work stayed and took pics with me (in groups and individually) which felt funny, like I was some kind of celebrity. I also gave back my teamwear (the tracksuit jacket and the coat) since I am not coming back. They asked if I wanted to have breakfast with them, but we still had some packing and lots of cleaning (and some re-arranging of furniture) to do in the apartment, so I decided to go home and get (re-)started on those; which also motivated my hubby to get stuff done.

My new bookmarks

Cleaning the whole apartment (sweeping then vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen counter and the tables), we continued to put more things into the ‘still needs to be packed’ pile. Which is getting to be concerning in size. We are also doing my favourite part of the moving abroad, which is eating all the stray pieces of food we can combine into weird dishes. (We’ve had a chili sin carne with spaghetti the other day and bulgur with canned mango slices for lunch today; dinner will be more of this bulgur-lentil mix with a frozen veggie mix stir-fried and covered in an insane amount of teriyaki sauce.)

Our fabulous lunch

In the afternoon, the swim team captain came by and gave me a picture (a collage of pictures of me with the team) and a T-shirt as gifts from the team. They are so nice. Then we went to the embassy and hang out there for more than an hour - one last time. The ambassador and the diplomats said goodbye and we left some things there (gave my plants and our cash to my friend at the embassy). I’ve also baked muffins yesterday (to use up flour and baking powder and the rest of the dried apricots and dark chocolate and such) and brought them to the embassy today. Most people declined but the consul was happy to take the rest when we left, so I guess it’s in good hands. Egészségedre, Ádám! :)

At 5pm, the landlady and landlord came by to get one set of keys for the apartment (we had 2, and the door cannot be opened from the outside without keys so we can just leave one set of keys here in the morning when we leave, and they can come in with the other one). They also checked the rooms and gave the deposit back (in cash, so we had to walk to Shangri-La to deposit it on my Mongolian bank account, since we won’t be able to use cash from tomorrow morning; at least, since we were already there, we had one last vegan sandwich in Foody and got an orange bubble tea too).

Last supper
(I'm gonna miss these egg sandwiches so much)

In the evening, we spent a little time chilling (talking to people online) and then finished packing and tidying up. Took a bath fairly early (trying to go to bed in time – won’t happen) – before 10 pm, since I needed the dirty clothes so that I could finish packing. I am guessing our bedtime to be sometime before midnight though, which would be improvement still. And then getting up at 5 am...