I will start linking to places we stayed at etc, from now on. On
the one hand, we already left those places so my paranoid self can
rest assured that no one will come hunt us down, on the other hand,
I decided to only to name and link to those places which really
deserve a mention. If they are linked here, I can whole-heartedly
recommend them.
Mongolia
After leaving through the Russian border fortifications,
Mongolia was an instant and welcome change. Trees growing right
next to the tracks, branches forming a bit of a natural tunnel; the
trains passing by keeping branches at bay, but the trees free to
grow wherever else they pleased. A few hundred meters later below a
rocky ledge, a cow had apparently fallen down and died. Partially
decomposed flesh still clinging halfway to its rib-cage, it proved
to be a sign of the (mostly) more laid-back attitude Mongolians
tend to take.
After finally getting our passports back and being allowed to
leave the train, we first headed to the station to get some money.
At ~1800:1, the exchange rate for Tugruk against Euro speaks
volumes about inflation; imagine my surprise that the MNT 20,000
note is the largest one. It's also the one and only amount any and
all ATMs will default to.
We were quite surprised by how cheap everything was, even in the
one single store within the station directly behind the border. In
Russia, travellers expect to pay hefty markups when shopkeepers
know they can charge them, not so in Mongolia.
The woman in the trash
Upon returning from the station, our waggon was just merrily
being driving away on its own by a lone engine, something we had
not anticipated or appreciated a whole lot. A woman (we hadn't
noticed her before) who was busy scavenging a trash container for
food for herself and her scrawny-looking son happily stopped what
she was doing and, with a big smile, moved her hands around and
smacked them back together, signalling us that our waggon would be
attached to a different train for the subsequent journey.
To put it mildly, I was stunned; we had met people eating from
the trash in Russia as well (yes, I always make a point of giving
them enough for a few decent meals; anyone eating out of the trash
actually needs and definitely deserves something good happening to
them), but they were glum and disheartened. Here, there was someone
who not only had to look out for herself, but for a three or four
year old boy as well, and still was just so... positive... I don't
know if I would have it in me to act the same way...
As an aside, even though we were just a few kilometers across
the border from Russia, she did not actually take the money from
me, she cupped her hands to receive it by having me place it into
her hands; this is a very Asian thing in my experience and
something we would see both in Mongolia and China consistently.
Later, when we were back in our waggon, she passed by and
happened to see the Spot Messgenger 2 dangling in front of our
window, its lights blinking every five seconds. For a solid twenty
minutes, until the train started moving again, she squatted down
with her son, oggling the Spot. I have no idea what she was
thinking it was and I had no chance to explain it to her, but she
was really fascinated and just kept staring and staring.
When we finally left the station, we waved to and smiled at each
other, she ran after us, and then she was gone. All in all, this
was one the more memorable things which happened to us.
Mongolian Infrastructure
When I say that Mongolians as a whole tend to be a lot more laid
back than Russians, this extends to infrastructure as well, but not
in the good way.
- Where Russia uses concrete sleepers, Mongolia
uses roughly-hewn wooden ones.
- Where Russia has two rail tracks, Mongolia has a single one
which is extended by parking spots to let other trains pass then
and now.
- Where Russia maintains a perimeter along their rail tracks,
Mongolia has a mainly gapless barbed-wire fence against animals on
both sides; said fence may be near or far, covered with bushes or
standing on its own. Its there so serve a purpose, but that's it.
There's nothing else in ways of track protection.
- Where Russia has well-built, if dirty, crossings with one
design spanning across all of Russia, Mongolia has random crossings
that happen to look like they look.
- While Russia's streets are covered with potholes, Mongolia's
are covered with potcaves.
- Some smaller stations didn't warrant a stop, but they couldn't
be passed at full speed, either. Basically, if someone was waiting
at the station, the train would come to a complete stop. At night,
attendants would lean out of the train with flashlights, scanning
the station and its surroundings for potential customers. If anyone
was found, they signalled the driver and we would stop. Strange,
but it works.
Ulan Bator
Little Dhingis Khan
We arrived in Ulan Bator at six in the morning and started
haggling with taxi drivers. Our hostel had (stale, it turned out)
information about acceptable fare from station to their place on
their website, 5,000 MNT was supposedly OK. Our driver tried to get
20,000, then 15,000, then 12,000, then 10,000, went down to 7,000
and finally settled for 5,000, all this interspersed with frequent
"no" by us and walking away. Once on the road, he wanted to
convince me that we had agreed upon 5,000 per person, something
that did not quite work out for him. When we arrived, he started to
tell me that he was good friends with the hostel manager and that
said manager would surely want us to pay more; again, that did not
work too well. He made the mistake of getting our luggage out of
his trunk immediately (we always kept all our stuff in the
passenger area afterwards...) before I paid and even though I only
had a 10,000 or 20,000 note, I insisted on correct change. The same
old dance began anew, with him edging closer to the correct change
in steps of 1,000 MNT. He tried to get away several times, but I
stood in his door and held it open; if he had just driven off, I
couldn't have stopped him, but that thankfully didn't occur to him.
After he shoved all small change (MNT is bill only, no coins) he
had with him at me and wanted to make off yet again, I was close to
throwing all the small crap at him, but after he, a man of maybe
1.65 meter and sitting down, tried to signal his willingness for a
fist fight and me, a man of 1.94 meter and standing started
laughing, he gave me 2,000 more and drove off cursing.
In case you forgot, at that exchange rate, we argued about two
to three Euro, but as he tried to cheat, it became a matter of
principle.
The Hostel, part one
All parking lots and other property in Ulan Bator have a small
watchtower with private 24/7 guards; said guard ambled down, let us
in and woke the poor woman who was forced to let us check in. As
she was Mongolian as well, we were a bit surprised when she
switched from broken English to perfect German, but the owners of
the
OASIS are a
German-Austrian couple so I guess that makes sense.
Fighting through the war
Traffic in Ulan Bator is war. Lonely Planet talks about the city
being too newly motorized and that it did not have to develop a
culture of driving, yet. This is a euphemism for "no one has any
qualms maiming or killing you". Everyone is driving like mad,
nudging and racing their way in front of each other. If a driver
has an oppurtunity to get ahead by a few centimeters with his small
car, thereby blocking the way for several buses, making a whole
parking lot grind to a halt and thereby deadlocking themselves,
they will take said opportunity, and gladly.
Red lights are gentle suggestions, there to be mainly ignored;
police will not drive over red lights, but they will not stop
anybody else from doing so, either. A hearse will have a dozen or
more cars following it, all driving in a tight pack, aggressively
attacking anyone who dares to wedge in between them and expecting
all other traffic to make way even if they are driving over a red
light.
Crossing a main street in Ulan Bator as a pedestrian is hell.
There are a few traffic lights and they help to some extent, but
you still need to be extremely careful when crossing a street.
Thailand, India, Russia, China, no matter where it's supposedly
hard to cross a street by foot, I never had any issues weaseling
through. In UB, it takes planning, determination, and a lot of
attention, especially as there are stretches where there's not a
traffic light in sight. While maintaining eye contact with a driver
usually ensures that they will try not to hit you, this does not
work in the least in UB. In the evening, I took to shining a
high-powered flashlight at the ground to the oncoming traffic's
side to mark ourselves and decrease the likelihood of being hit.
This worked well in combination with sprinting through gaps in the
traffic, except for one guy who actively aimed for us and did
not slow down. He even changed lanes, just to keep us in
front of his car... Shining the flashlight directly at him in
highest mode made him break quite violently though; a good thing,
as he may have hit us had he not slowed down.
UB itself
Ulan Bator is weird.
It has clear signs of westernization, but it's still very much
an old city. There is one large store which would fit into any
random shopping center in Germany (which are tiny when compared to
most other countries) and which carries most goods, if with a
limited selection. Its supermarket is extremely well stocked with
food and drink from all other the world and laughably cheap (for
us) prices.
While its infrastructure is definitely crumbling, the city is
clean, especially when compared to Russia. Two girls from
Stuttgart who we met during our Trans-Siberian travels commented on
how clean Russian cities were when compared to home, but that may
be more of a statement about Stuttgart than about Russia...
Anyway, in Mongolia in general and in UB in particular, there's
a concise effort to make what they have look nice and clean. There
is no trash in the streets, loose gravel and earth is removed from
the curb by dedicated workers, all areas of packed earth are sieved
and all large stones removed. All in all, it's a
lot
cleaner (if more dusty and sandy) than Russian cities if somewhat
older and more shabby-looking. That being said, Mongolia's
countryside is littered
There were several street stalls consisting of nothing more than
a cardboard box on a stool selling single chewing gums and
cigarettes from the original packaging; it's normal for people to
buy one cigarette or one piece of chewing gum and walk on.
The sights of UB were nice, but nothing too special.
Outlook
In the next part, I'll cover "The Hostel, part disaster" and
generally talk more about excrement than I thought one could write
before moving on to China (were I am located at the time of this
writing).
Just back in from an amazing concert at the
Chicago Symphony Center. Vocalists
Angelique Kidjo,
Dianne Reeves and
Lizz Wright supported by all-star
band of
Geri Allen on piano,
Romero Lubambo on electric and acoustic guitar,
James Genus on electric bass guitar,
Munyungo Jackson on percussion and
Terri Lyne Carrington on
drums (and musical director). The concert alternates between solos and
joint pieces with more joy and soul than I heard in a long time. Great evening.
I am transitioning my 
When attacking a process, one interesting target on the heap is the 
In the face of 
Most probably haven't noticed yet but I finished the 
There is a reason it's called experimental isn't there?
In 
Just an update about
This poem is only in German language, but I hope you can forgive me to run it in my English language feed nevertheless. I send you the best season greetings, have a nice time, use it well, relax and think about it. :)
So, next Saturday 
Speaking of Minas Gerais, it is, according to Wikipedia, the fourth in size among the 26 States of Brazil, being just a bit bigger than mainland-France. Minas Gerais is one of the main earth transports hubs of the country (having the largest number of federal roads), and is famous for its tasty food, the beauty of its people, its cheeses, the calm, introspective nature of its people, its interesting way of speaking portuguese, and its alcoholic beverages.
Now, going away from Rio to Belo Horizonte has a single big disadvantage associated with it: we don t get to have the Sea a few minutes away, anymore. Our solution to that is, of course, going to one of the numerous bars (the legend goes around that BH has the largest absolute number of bars of all cities in the world), and drinking instead of swimming! Quem n o tem mar, vai pro bar!
This post describes how to play with the UK postcode database that 
It has become a hidden tradition for me to watch Superbowl every year, despite disappointment in the game and coverage quality in the years before. It started as before: pre-game show, pre-pre-game show, coin toss show and kick-off show It is clear that the show is planned by and for advertisers and not for the viewers. That is a shame and a disgrace - the viewer must be the master of the TV programming and NOT the advertisers. In soccer the program starts, you see the captains exchange a handshake, you see the referee throw a coin and 10-15 seconds later the game is going full steam. Why do you need 3 ad breaks and 2 songs before the game is beyond me - get to the game!
The camera work and NBC commentary is MUCH better than last year - stable shots with good close-ups and explanations that actually make sense even to people that are not American football experts. Oh and they actually use units - saying they won x out of y games this season and not they are x in y this season , mostly at least.
The game had more fun than usual in the beginning, but the legal things slow it up again - it is weird that a guy got over the line but was called beck because of the knee touching and then a penalty for a false start ? Too much rules and regulations. Soon you ll have a team of lawyers on the sidelines and lawyer drafts will be more important than player drafts. And then again holding and chopping - isn t that what the blockers are supposed to do? Is that some kind of sissy sport?
Maybe not. 100 yard interception return run I am speechless. Now that was a great, great play. That episode alone made watchig this thing worth it. Not the best sport thing I ve seen, but the best American football moment for sure.
I like the basis of the game, it is a good game, but there is way too much fluff on it. That game needs to be cut down - less rules, less breaks, less interruption, less advertisements, less time to think and relax for the players. 10 seconds of play and 5 minutes of players chatting is not a sport, even curling has more action. The whole Superbowl should be over in 1 hour real time. If the TV transmission starts at 17:00, it should be done before 18:00. There is no content there to justify anything longer than that.
Why is there a limited number of challenges? Do the referees make only a limited number of mistakes per game? No. Illogical.
And when I though it was done and sealed, Arizona does a great drive and get a great touchdown. One more drive like that and the game could go either way. Now that is a good game. But again penalties spoil the whole game Fitsgerald gets a touchdown, another great play to turn the game around, but only because of the holding penalty giving Arizona safety score. Not deserving in my opinion. And the Steelers drive back AMAZING game! Now this is actually close to the best sports game that I have ever seen. I sure was not expecting that. And Arizona tries to drive back again. I was sleepy when I started to watch this, no sleep now. That was a great game. Despite all the commercialization, it is still a great game and it is very watchable if you download it from the Internet or watch it with TiVo and can skip the adds and the slow parts.
Not being from 
(Hint: Have a look at the german borders)
