Happy Nadaam Everyone! This has been a week of celebrations and resting, friends and good food.

On Wednesday we attended the wedding reception of a good friend’s daughter. The bride was gorgeous, the food delicious, and the vodka flowing.

The wedding party.

We were especially impressed by the numerous, and quite frankly, famous singers on hand to entertain us. The first singer was Hongorzul, Mongolia’s most famous long song singer.

We were also entertained by 3 Butuun, or the Three Fat Guys,

and best of all Lkhagva, the lead singer of Haranga which is one of Mongolia’s oldest and best long haired bands.

This song is Mongolia’s rock anthem and in my opinion a great example of how to incorporate horse races into rock music.

Thanks to free tickets from Brian’s employer we attended the opening ceremony of Nadaam in Ulaanbaatar on Thursday. Even though we have been here for years all of our past Nadaams have been in the countryside or hiding in our apartment and so it was our first chance to go to the big show. We were very impressed by how well organized everything was from the registered food booths to the crossing guards and the cast of 3,000 was impressive.

The most people I have ever seen in one place in Mongolia

Hundreds of dancers.

Hundreds of solders standing in the shape of Mongolia.

Gotta love the tiny riding helmet.

Thanks to a program funded by Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia’s biggest mine, 8 museums in Ulaanbaatar and Omnogobi were free over the Nadaam holiday. Darkhuu, Handarmaa and I took advantage of this and visited the Bogd Khan Winter Palace yesterday. You can’t take pictures of any of the displays but the outside of the Palace had some lovely paintings and architectural features.

The southern gate.

Door detail.

In between all our activities we have also managed to read,

Reading with cats.

visit world famous dinosaurs,

and eat asparagus. Here’s to vacation time!

We are back in Hanhongor for a few days to pack up and see our friends. Most of our things have been boxed up with the furniture to either be returned to the school, used by Darkhuu, or sold. Living in a ger has protected us from collecting too much stuff, but it is still enough to fill the back of a van. We will miss Hanhongor and our little ger but days like today (90F with no wind and an all day power outage) remind us that there are benefits to living in the big city.

Yesterday we walked out to visit Nigel's grave. His rock ovoo has grown impressively over the past two years.

Who says you can't go swimming in the Gobi desert?

Hanhongor after a storm.

This really begs the question why anyone would choose to nap on dung.

Brian on a conference call for work. Seems a lot like his old job to me....

Our wonderful neighbor Sanaa, who is a junior in college, surprised us today with a model ger that he made entirely by himself. It is truly an amazing work of art that will have a place of honor in our new apartment.

Sanaa and his amazing ger.

It comes complete with a traditional stove and chest...

two beds and a miniature mirror....

a horse saddle (not pictured), and a sack for churning your airag (fermented horses' milk).