UB Update

Well I spent enough money on trinkets today to make up for the week of spending almost nothing out in the boonies.

Thankfully, it warmed up. Yesterday it got down to 0 F/-18 C. Unfortunately, we chose yesterday to go to one of Asia's largest open air markets. It was fun to see the rows and rows of ger-making supplies, but my fingers and toes hurt.

Today we had lunch at an expat. hangout, I had fun eavesdropping. It was mostly businessmen, but interesting nonetheless.

After that we went to the Political Persecution Memorial Museum. The museum is housed in the home of the former Mongolian prime minister who refused to carry out Stalin's purge on his people (so he was taken to Moscow and executed). The curator said about 30,000 Mongolians were murdered between the late 1930s and up until the 1960s, the majority of victims being Buddhist lamas. Mass graves were being discovered as recently as 2003.

There wasn't much English. But there was a case of skulls - each with a bullet hole through the forehead, top or side.

It was a sobering stop. Communism is so evil. I had professors in college who smirked at that kind of rhetoric like it's hyperbole, but it's not.

Tonight we're going to check out a microbrewery which, according to Lonely Planet, serves some of the nation's best beer. Exciting!