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I have to say I am happy that we never went to the cinema to see 2012. The storyline is absolute shite, the only reason that you would watch it is to see the special effects (which to be honest I had heard). Its a nice change though to be watching a movie at all though. Whilst we were in Beijing we could only watch TV & the only English channel was the 24 hr news, which gets a little tedious. It’s kinda amazing that there is only a news channel (CCTV) in English, there are quite a few channels (30+), I would have thought that they might have a channel like SBS in OZ that shows foreign films (actually Chinese films would be great) with English captions, but alas there is not.

We are in Chengdu now, at Sims Cozy Guesthouse, the first place that we have stayed with a DVD player in your room, not to mention an abundance of DVD’s to select from too. Tonight was 2012 (they couldn’t find The Love Boat DVD), not sure what we will watch tomorrow.

So here we are in Xi-an, we caught a flight with China Eastern Air today, we originally wanted to catch a train, but that was fully booked & it was much cheaper, to fly then wait it out in Beijing for another 10 days, both money wise & time wise.

The trip was interesting. We left a little later than we had originally hoped & then the ticketing agent that we booked the flights with (so much easier than trying to book a flight online - tried that for 6 hours & the sites kept crashing + they  are all over the place & price difference is minimal or the same as online) accidentally wrote the wrong terminal # on our e-ticket, so we ended up going to Terminal 3 instead of Terminal 2, by the time that we realised the mistake it was 12.45pm, our flight was at 2 - DOH!

We caught the free shuttle bus, which takes you between the terminals. From terminal 3, you have to go to level B to do so & the shuttle bus is quite easy to find. The ride to Terminal 2 was about 20 minutes. We checked in for our flight by 1.10, but still got on (despite all the signage stating that the flight check-in closed 60 minutes before departure). All foreigners have to show passports for photo ID both at check in & security, although the security check area seemed more like immigration.

For domestic flights here you cannot carry more than 100ml of liquids, so I had my water bottle taken & Geoff, who had forgotten to pack the white vinegar we bought in Mongolia (for hot chips - which I haven’t really eaten much of) in his checked baggage had some questions asked about the vinegar. We told them that it was cu (vinegar) & then when they opened the bottled & inhaled deeply, seemed annoyed that it was indeed vinegar - quite funny really. Although there were a few moments when we thought, Oh crap, this is going to go really bad - especially when they took Geoff’s passport + the bottle of vinegar & ushered him to another area with more security, but it all worked out - phew!

We boarded at 1.30 & the plane was on the runway by 1.50, in the air at 2 - so don’t be late for your flight, you might miss it. Apparently the departure time is actually the time you are in the air.

The flight was good, we managed to get an English copy of the China Mail, which was fortuitous as the video screen we had in front of us was broken, (so we missed the safety briefing & other entertainment they had playing). They served drinks & food (sandwiches, so Geoff got a double helping, apparently they tasted ok too), I brought food on the plane, which I ate.

Getting to our accommodation was a bit of a task. We finally arrived 4.5hrs after touch down. We weren’t sure if we had a booking, but in the end we did, which was great. We were originally told that we could only have a double room for one night, but when we got here were told that we could indeed have one for 3 nights - it’s a mystery, no-one ever seems to know what the hell is going on.

We caught the shuttle bus from the airport to the Melody Hotel (near the Drum & Bell tower) for 25Y each. Fortunately we had bought a map at the airport (robbed for 10Y) in English, which had bus numbers on it. If you stay at 7sages hostel & take the shuttle bus in & try to get a taxi I hope that you don’t have as many issues as we did. Taxi’s either flat out refused to take us (fare was too small) or tried to rob us. The fare should be no more than 10Y, but they wanted us to pay up to 60Y - NO WAY!!

In the end we caught a 610 bus most of the way (1Y each) & then got a tuk-tuk driver to take us the rest of the way (15Y) not the cheapest, but our experience with the Tuk-Tuk driver was nice, he didn’t try to rip us off (well, not any more than we were prepared for at that point - 4hrs later) & he took us to our destination - FIRST TIME EVER!!! 

The hostel is really nice. We are in one of the new double rooms, so although there is an Ethernet port for Internet access that hasn’t been setup & the TV isn’t working yet either. We do have a really nice bed, not too hard, like Beijing & a huge bathroom + more importantly an air-conditioner!!!

Tomorrow we will see the Terracotta Warriors, self-guided. The cheapest tour that they have is 200Y each for 1/2 a day. Too expensive for not enough time & having to get frustrated with a guide telling us “you have 1hr to see ….. ” - we are both looking forward to it

We woke up a little later today, about 8am, normally I seem to get up at 5 or 6am & I caught up on a past post, whilst watching the only English TV channel, 24hr news. Subway line #1 was experiencing some delays & people were being encouraged to catch other means of transport after someone “fell” in front of the train. Subway line 1 seems to be one of the only lines that does not have automatic opening doors, so one could easily “fall” in front without any issues - perhaps that is why that they have the barriers there for so many trains in the first place here?

Anyhow, after that we went to the post office to post a couple of packages, one containing a couple of paintings that we bought, one by a Deaf artist in Mongolia (UB) & the other one that we found which we liked + a box of stuff, mostly books & some souvenirs. Boy was that a mammoth effort, we should have allowed at least 2 hours to do that.

We bought the big box (with the books etc) a few days before & left it unsealed (only the bottom taped up) as we had read that was the thing to do, as they like to look at it first. We had bought a knife from our cooking class a few days ago (40Y = $8) & that was taken out of the package, you can’t post it, although you can put it in your checked baggage when you fly - WTF? Not sure how to send it back, or if it will get to Canada, but it would be really cool if it did.

We sent it express post with China Post - DON’T DO IT!!!! It cost us $600 + to post (3048Y). We couldn’t get out of it either, all the paperwork was done & signed & stuck to the packages. We should have looked for a parcel company to send it through instead, but we were already running late for our flight, FUCK!!!! Earlier this morning, we received an email from Michael saying that our car still wasn’t sold, so a mistake like that really bites!!!

Off to the airport now to catch our flight, should have left at 11, but we are leaving just after 12pm now, hope we get there in time.

Well, we have had to seriously consider the idea of possibly leaving China a little earlier that originally planned.

Between the Typoon, which is flooding most of the south & being unable to book train tickets about the place, unless you want to stand for 12+ hr train rides it looks like we might have to give up on some of our plans. We can get flights to places, but we didn’t budget for catching so many flights. Tibet is also looking a little unlikely, which is a bummer but shit happens.

We are still in Beijing, will leave on Monday. We will catch a flight to Xi-an so that we can see the terracotta warriors. Oh well, you have to expect that everything doesn’t always go to plan eh?

We have arrived in China. I can’t access FB or Twitter, so there won’t be any updates on them for the next month or so. I had setup a youtube account too, which I was going to upload some videos to, but yet again it seems to be a blocked site, so I might have to do that when we get to Canada. We have had some technical issues, but we managed to get Geoff’s netbook connected in our room, so at least for this post (and the others that I will post to catchup to now) we have internet access.

So far we have found Beijing to be quite a nice city. It is quite smoggy & you can’t see very far as a result - forget trying to get city views from any sort of lookout, but it isn’t difficult to breathe. I actually found the air pollution in UB to be much worse, you can at least breathe the air here, perhaps you can’t see much, but at least it doesn’t stink & you can breathe fairly well.

We arrived Saturday afternoon at Beijing train station & we had planned to stay here until Thursday/ Friday, but we might stay a few more days. There is a cooking class that we are interested in doing with a place called Black Sesame Kitchen, but as yet we have not heard from them, so not sure what will happen there. It looks as though we might axe our 3 day Yangzi River cruise, there is severe flooding in the area due to a typhoon that hit a few days ago & it is only getting worse. If we cancel that then we will probably get rid of Chengdu too (where the pandas are). We have tried to cram in a little bit too much for the time that we have as it is, & there are always going to be things that you miss out on.

Today is a bit of a relaxing day, of sorts. My knee has been playing up & it is extremely sore to walk on at the moment, so we are going to do a few little things. We had planned to see the Forbidden City, but that is a full day walking & the other things that we want to see here, like the Summer Palace is Huge & the Great Wall isn’t much better for walking either, so we will get onto those things again tomorrow (don’t worry, not all at the same time). We have been thinking that we might try to get haircuts today, visit The Drum Tower & Bell Tower, & perhaps some theatre tonight, but our plans are pretty flexible.

After having a rather long day out & about & with my knee acting up, we decided to stop & get some food for dinner. WOW, what an experience that turned out to be - one that we won’t be forgetting any time soon.

As most people know, I have several life threatening food allergies (Milk - all dairy, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, Eggs & Peanuts). It really does make finding food a rather tiring and wearing exercise, I never really start to relax until dinner is over & am on my way, without needing to use any epi-pens or having to call an ambulance. I love to eat, so whilst I am somewhat used to the whole exercise, it does shit me.

I have a couple of translations of my allergies in Chinese (Mandarin) which I have been using. Yesterday it took them about 30 minutes to work out what I could eat, but thank goodness they had a menu with pictures, so I was able to gauge if they understood my allergies. It is always nice when you see something like Pork Buns or Won-Tons & they say NO (meaning you can’t have this) on the menu, it gives you some confidence that they at least seem to somewhat grasp what you are allergic to. I probably give people a little bit of time to work it out too, as it is a bit of a list to get through. Too often I have seen something on a menu that I am so obviously allergic to & been told, “Yes, you can have this” - Crap, get me outta here quick!

Anyhow, we were welcomed into a rather happening looking restaurant & ushered to a table near the door. They gave us menu’s, which were written in Chinese script only (no pictures), so we knew straight away that this was probably going to be interesting. I showed them my piece of paper with my allergies written on it, which was passed around to pretty much most of the staff, a few people laughed (fair enough, not often that you might see someone with that many allergies) and once that was over with we set about working out what to eat, with the aid of a phrasebook (good for some sentences - but normally pretty shit for trying to convey anything to do with food) + a English/ Mandarin - Mandarin/ English Dictionary we also used some pointing (at food) & making animal noises, much to the amusement of people there.

We started out pointing to things in the dictionary (Mandarin/ English) the head waiter actually looked after us the whole night, although it felt like he was more there to make sure that we didn’t embarrass him bu eating in a culturally inappropriate way (which I think that we still managed to do). He asked if I could eat Rice, Mutton, Beef, Wings (I clucked like a chicken) & he managed a smile & nodded, so we figured he meant Chicken wings, Cabbage, Potato ….., it went on for a while, there were a few characters that he pointed to in the dictionary, which were parts of other words, which I didn’t understand, so I just said no to them. Geoff noticed some people having Hot Pot behind us, so we thought that we might just order that, with meat, which we did.

We ordered drinks, Geoff got a beer (which so far have been HUGE through the parts of Asia we have seen - Seoul, Mongolia & China & very cheap) & I ordered a juice, which came in a bottle about 1/6th of the size of Geoff’s beer (I was feeling a little ripped there). They brought out the big Hot Pot (which was a big dish of boiling water (with a burner) with chilli, ginger, garlic etc in the water to flavour + the sesame based sauce that you dribble over all the meats that you cook.

The sesame sauce was a bit of a heart stopper, as we first thought that it was peanut based, a really nice sauce though, which you mixed chilli, & other spices into yourself - YUM!

There were several different meats, some sort of octopus, beef, pork & lamb (lots of meat), which was all cut quite finely so that it cooked quickly in the broth (hot pot). Then we started to get other dishes, like chicken wings on a stick, rice, & several cabbage dishes. The table was filling up, we were happy to eat at a leisurely pace, but then the head waiter decided to help us out & started to cook the meat for the hot pot, at first we thought that perhaps it was due to us not cooking it the right way, but as soon as he had cleared a few of the plates that had contained bits for the hot pot they were replaced with more plates of food - Holy Shit!!

We finally worked out that he had not been collating a list of food that I could eat at the start to workout what we could eat on the menu, we had in fact ordered at least one or more dishes with those ingredients in them (cabbage, chicken wings etc) - in total there were 13 different dishes of food. Not only did we have a full table of food, but we also had a trolley next to the table with more food on it (the greens for the hot pot). We had to tell them no more, we were full (they still had more dishes coming apparently - holy crap!!!). The leftover food didn’t all go to waste though, we took a lot of it back with us to eat over the next couple of days.

That has to be one of the funniest experiences that we have ever had, it was nice to have so much Chinese food, I actually feel like I got to sample a decent amount of Chinese food (it seemed like the whole menu), which is nice, as I love Chinese, but my allergies can be somewhat restricting. Good to end up with that much food over here too, it ended up costing us $30, it would have easily been about $200 - $300 in OZ.

Seeing as we arrived on the weekend, we took advantage of this morning to drop off our passports to the Vietnamese Embassy to get our visa put in. We couldn’t get it before we left OZ, as it would have expired before we even reached Vietnam, so unfortunately we had to do it here.

From there we headed to Tiananmen Square, which to be honest we both found a little disappointing. It wasn’t until we went to The Gate of Heavenly Peace (15Y ea) & were able to look over Tiananmen Square & look at the pictures on display of past historical events there (everything was written in Chinese, so all you could do was look at the pretty pictures) that we appreciated it a little more. Getting into the Gate of Heavenly Peace was interesting though, first we had to deposit our bags at the luggage area for 4Y (not bad for 2 bags) & then we had to join a queue to go through a security check. My patting down consisted of the woman feeling one of my front pockets, which I think was much the same for all the women, but the queue that Geoff was in, the guy was giving all the guys a full on pat down, front & back. My security check 1 min, with a queue, Geoff’s 13 minutes, with a queue. The view from the top is supposed to be quite nice, but I am not sure when you would see it, we were just above the square (Tiananmen Square) & we couldn’t even see all of it. Oh, we didn’t see Mao in state, the memorial hall is closed Mondays.

It started to rain as we headed to The Temple of Heaven & the rain never really let up for the rest of the day. The Temple of Heaven was actually quite nice, we weren’t too sure what it would be like, but it was quite nice. Very quirky in a way because all of the temples are circular. It took us about 4 hours to look around & we didn’t look at everything. We bought a through ticket 35Y ea + a Guide to the temple of Heaven 10Y (only got one). The guide is basically just a big map & some blurbs about the buildings + some convoluted explanation about the area. It’s quite nice really, would be nice to frame actually.

After all that we headed back to our hotel, stopping on the way to get some food for dinner - WOW, what an experience that turned out to be. I might have to do a totally new post for that one.

We didn’t really rush to get out of the hotel that early on Sunday (about 10am) our first task was to head off to the Foreign Language Bookshop, to buy a dictionary, the Lonely Planet China Phrasebook is shit!! Which is why that you should always look at the book that you are buying, instead of rushing around like we did, it has 14 languages in it & the phrases/ dictionaries for all of the languages it has are useless. We tried to converse with people using it when we arrived & gave up in the end - biggest waste of money. You may as well buy separate phrasebooks for each language you need (we need Mandarin, Cantonese & Tibetan). I was fairly humoured that the 14 languages it has also included Mongolian …. anyhow, we have learned to look not just buy books in a rush.It took us a while to get to the Foreign Language Bookshop, as we went to the wrong suburb, but we did eventually find it. We bought a few books actually, English/ Chinese (Mandarin) / Mandarin/ English dictionary, Mandarin Phrasebook + Phrasebooks for Lao & Vietnamese, a Go Book & Tao Teaching (book of Chinese poems) for Geoff + Chinese Fairytales & Myths + a book by Lisa See called Snow Flower & the Secret Fan. I looked for a Chinese Sign Language book, but they didn’t have any in stock, which was ok since Kun bought me a Chinese SL dictionary set last year.

Pearl Market

After spending a while wandering about, we eventually settled on looking at the Pearl Market & Holy Shit, didn’t we spend some money there. We started in the electronics area, we were actually looking for Lithium AA Batteries (not rechargeable), we did eventually find some Energiser Lithium Batteries, at the very end, as the Market was closing (took us 3 hours to achieve), but in the middle we managed to buy; 1×8GB CF Card (prices are rough & in AUD) $30, 128GB Kingston USB Stick $50, Small Battery operated fan (because I was so hot) $2, Car Key Micro Camera $20 (freaky as, but so cool, it looks like a car door opener & the video is quite good), a bag for me (just an over the shoulder thing, that I can fit my Epi-pens, phrasebooks + some food etc in) $12, a set of Chopsticks $8 + 4 AA Lithium Batteries for $10.

You really do have to bargain, don’t buy them for the initial price they give you, no matter how cheap it seems. We made sure that the CF Card & USB & video camera (the car key thing) worked before we bought them (you can ask to test them & they will let you) as you can end up buying something that doesn’t work. The CF Card & USB stick were 2 of the first things that we bought (at the same place) & we probably should have gotten them a bit cheaper, but Geoff reckoned that they were already pretty cheap, so we really didn’t haggle that much at all on those prices. I found that if you start really low & stick to it, quite often when you walk away after they refuse, they end up calling you back & you get it at the price that you wanted (then I think, damn, should I have come up with a lower amount).

I kinda hated being called “Lady” all the time, “Lady you want Bag”, Lady you want scarf….., but worse than that was when people were physically grabbing you. I do not like to be pulled and dragged into someones stall. I realise that they want me to look at their stuff, but that doesn’t make me want to look. Geoff actually had to prise a womans hand off of my arm at one point. We had people block our path & corral us into their shops (I got away, Geoff not so lucky). It does get a little wearing after you have gone past several dozen shops already & need to go past several more & it’s a constant battle to do so, but hey, isn’t that all part of the experience.

We missed the basement with the snakes & Scorpions, so we will go back to the market in the next few days, before we leave Beijing to see that + I might have a look around at the other parts of the market again, great place to buy stuff really.

What a shock to the system, arriving in Beijing China was interesting, we went from a city of 1 million people to 15 million (Ulaanbaatar - Beijing) on the train in a matter of 30 hrs. It sounds like a long time on a train, but it wasn’t really that bad. We both enjoyed having the forced time off, no rushing around seeing things or packing & unpacking.

We were dropped off by Bataa (our Deaf taxi friend), who hung around with us until our train arrived around 7am - & departed at 7.15am. It was nice being able to have a chat to him before we left the country.

The train trip itself was interesting. You are asked to  hand over your train tickets at the start & you don’t get them back til just before you get off, which sorta freaked us out, especially as we were the first ones that he collected tickets from.  All of the train staff were Chinese, except for the staff in the dining car (at least on the Mongolian side of the trip). So we got to practice our Chinese straight away & make absolute idiots of ourselves. We were in Hard-Sleepers, which means that we were sharing our cabin area with 2 other people, a couple of girls (one from Sweden, the other German - both on holidays from Uni. The hard-sleeper was 1/2 the price (129860 Terper) of a soft-sleeper class & it was quite comfortable. We originally tried to get a soft-sleeper, but as we were on the first train to China after Naadam we were pretty lucky to get the Hard-Sleepers & honestly, it wasn’t that bad. There were toilets at either end of the carriage & hot water was available from an urn at the front of the carriage (our end, we were seats 7 & 8, 2nd compartment from the front).

The border crossing was interesting, we went into a sort of lock down at 6.30pm. We had been in the  dining car, enjoying some of our last Mongolian food (we shared a dish) & had hoped to chill out a little longer there, when we were told, the dining car was closed. By the time we got back to our compartment in carriage #1, we couldn’t leave. We went through the Mongolian passport control by about 7pm & we didn’t finish on the Chinese side until after midnight.

The passport control is interesting, they go through the whole train & collect everyone’s passports, then they come back later & give them back stamped.

You knew that  we had crossed into China straight away, there was loud classical music, huge buildings with neon light sign age (in Chinese) & tree’s. When we went through the Chinese immigration (on the train of course again) I was asked to take off my glasses & pose (friggin passport conditions for getting a photo say that you can’t smile or wear glasses, so I had to recreate that image again - I hate passport photos!!!) - seemed to take him ages to agree that it was me. We also had to state our name for him, which was a little different.

We played a game of cards - “Jackass” with Sarah & Sandra through most of the process, which was funny, we all had to swap around a few times, especially when Geoff was ordered to get his bag down & go through a random check of his bag -  his bag is  70 - 90L, so he didn’t  even get to the 1/2 way mark before the guy who asked told him, that was enough - it was just a test.

So what do you think that you would do if you were faced with 2 different widths of track, would you get all the passengers off the train & herd them onto another one OR would you change the wheels? Here they change the wheels - the train pulls up into  a large covered shed, the train is lifted up (very smooth process) & then the wheels are pushed under (not so smooth). The train is jerked forwards & backwards as new carriages are pushed onto the end of the train with the new wheels, somehow though we all managed to get a bit of sleep (except for Geoff, who stayed awake. It was a rather rude awakening at midnight, when we were given back our passports by immigration. My name was called first & my passport thrust in my direction, & apparently I didn’t reach for it fast enough, as my name was called again, rather impatiently - oh well, I am sure that I wasn’t the first.

We didn’t really get a good view of the scenery until the morning & wow, it was really nice. Lots of trees (which I didn’t realise how much I missed them until we traveled through Mongolia) & heaps of crops of corn & other things. The scenery was a bit more mountainous too, which is what I expected to see. It was quite a pleasant train ride. We arrived in Beijing just after 2pm the next day.

Some tips for the train ride, would be;
* Bring some toilet paper, there was some at the start, but that quickly ran out (within 2 hours of departure), I had a large roll so I was set. Oh, the guys seem to pee all over the seat, so be aware of that late at night.
* Bring some tea bags (sugar & milk if you desire) so that you can make tea when you want on the train. You can ask for mugs to use on the train, so no need to bring you own, just make sure that you ask early enough to get some as I don’t know how many they have normally. They don’t give them to you automatically, you must ask. We found some potato flakes that we could use to make potato soup, with a bit of water added + Soy Milk + S&P. Bring some fruit & veg to snack on
*If you don’t bring food, you can get food & cold drinks in the dining car, it serves Mongolian food, whilst you are in Mongolia & Chinese food in China
* You can get your compartment locked by one of the staff if needed, either make friends with whomever you share with & get them to watch your stuff for you or get it locked, never leave everything without anyone there, it will be stolen if you do
* Sheets are free, you will receive a pillowcase + sheets at the start. There are narrow blankets that you can use if needed.
* If you catch the train all the way to Beijing, be prepared for them to start to pack up the sheets, tablecloth, seat covers, carpets etc several hours before you arrive, if you get off at a stop before then, you only have to give them back your sheets & pillowcase + mugs (if you borrowed them) before you get off.
* Before you get to any stops, USE the toilet, you can’t use them when you stop. This is especially worthwhile before you get to the border crossings - over 5hrs without being able to use the toilet is not always easy - they lock the toilets just before a stop.
* Bring entertainment, deck of cards, book, MP3 player etc. There is at least 1x 48V DC power point in each carriage hallway, which you can use to charge things if you need to, grab it quick though.
* Enjoy the scenery, it is amazing on both sides.

After the train
* Do NOT  accept  rides from  people who say that they are Taxi drivers, wait in the line  (which is large) or  walk up the road to find a  real taxi. Taxi’s start at 10Y
* Tuk-Tuks are generally a rip off, you will pay more for a Tuk-Tuk ride than a taxi & you will possible be dumped in the middle of no-where (like we were) & thus have to pay more than you would have if you had just gotten a taxi to start.

Wow, what a day, everything just fell into place. I have never been one to believe in a lot of coincidences, but today I did.

I have been trying to find out about the local Deaf community here in Mongolia & thus far have not had any success. At first I used my little Mongolian phrasebook & a lot of mime & gesture, without any success, then I had a note written in Mongolian to say that I was looking for a Sign Language dictionary in Mongolian, again, without much success.

However, I did find a woman that operates a shop that sells Mongolian crafts, who is originally from Ireland (from memory) & she tried to find out some information for me, whilst we went on our 20 day tour. She did find out the name of the shop where you can buy one, but apparently they don’t have any in stock.

We had planned to leave by about 10.30/ 11 to see her again to see if there was any way that I could source a SL book & due to all the rain earlier in the morning (well most of the night too) the streets were flooded, so we were going the long way to avoid the deep puddles of water & just past the State Department Store (outside of the Adidas shop) I saw 2 people signing. Holy shit!!!! Needless to say I was a little excited & tried to converse with them in SL. One man was Deaf the other hearing. After fumbling around with a bit of sign & managing to point to a few phrases in my phrasebook & sign a little, I showed him my paper, which said that I was looking for a Mongolian Sign Language book. He tried to show me on my shitty little tourist map where to go (that whole section was missing from my map) and in the end told us to come with him & he drove us to a Deaf Church, The Sunrise Centre.

We were there for about 3 hours, chatting to everyone. We had a bit of a tour of the building, looked at where the children can play, plus the actual room, where they have church services. They were a congregation of 400, but many people have moved from the city to the country, so there are 200 now. They had a big gym area (basketball court) as well for different social days that happen. Unfortunately, we will miss out on the 2 that are coming up, 18th & 25th July, (our visa’s expire on the 17th & to extend your visa you have to do that 3-4 days before it expires) we catch the train to Beijing on the 16th.

I got to have a look at the 2 Sign Language dictionaries they have. One is a children’s one, with hand drawn colour pictures of what the sign represents, the other is a rather thick dictionary, with photo’s of the signs (so you would need another Mongolian/ English dictionary with it, in order to understand what the sign means. The first one is all Mongolian Sign, the 2nd is a book that was constructed by HH & hearing & it is a mixture of Sign Languages (Korean, Chinese, + 2 others). The only MSL (Mongolian SL) is the alphabet. I really enjoyed learning a bit of sign, I learnt a few things, like how to say; Thank you, My Name ….. , Hi How are you, Good, Camel, Marmot, Gobi Desert, Mongolian, Horse, Turtle etc etc etc. Actually starting to write it down I now realise just how much I learnt.

We were asked if we had seen the BIG Chinggis Khan (40m high) monument just outside the city & when they realised that we had not, we were offered a lift with one of the Mongolian Deaf guys there (sorry I forget everyone’s names). He was a taxi driver (everyone is here really, if you have a car, you take passengers and they pay you). It was T35,000 ($35) to go there & it’s about 60KM out of the city, so not bad really + he even bought us some water on the way. Our driver had been to Australia about 5 years ago, he went to Sydney for a Judo championship, he couldn’t remember a lot of Auslan, but we managed to converse in a combination of International SL, Auslan, MSL + ASL. It was so nice to be interpreting again too, I did it for Geoff & also for our driver/ guide. I had a couple of interesting experiences with interpreting for our driver. We watched a video about the monument when we were there that had (limited) English captions, but nothing in Mongolian, so Interpreted that for our driver (so it went from Mongolian to English to SL), then we went to a Museum (located underneath the statue) & we had a woman that worked there who spoke some English (she was Mongolian) & she guided us around & I interpreted for our guide/ driver in SL too (even voiced back). Wow, what an amazing day. So nice to be interpreting again too - it was just so amazing!!

It had to be one of the best days & so nice to be able to communicate so well too, which we haven’t really had very much of since we arrived here. I felt so comfortable (& so did Geoff) conversing in SL - it was awesome.

I have to say a BIG Thanks to John Uri for the refresher in some ASL signs, that came in handy. It was really cool that we could fall back on the ASL alphabet to converse in as well. Their English was amazing, I wish that my Mongolian was 1/2 as good.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is our last day in Mongolia. We have arranged to meet up with everyone again (2pm) & hopefully I will even get a MSL dictionary. Can’t wait….