Naadam Festival

As my new Mongolian friend Nara put it, "Naadam is the day of remembrance that we are the offspring of the great emperor who conquered half of the world." And through my foreign eyes that seemed a pretty accurate description of the purpose of this two day sporting competition consisting of archery, long-distance horse racing, and traditional Mongolian wrestling. Unfortunately I arrived in Ulaanbaatar with my new foreign companions in the afternoon of the second and last day of the sports competition, but we managed to get to the main stadium where the wrestling events and awards ceremonies were held and see some VERY LARGE MONGOLIAN DUDES throwing each other around the field. It rained half of the time we were at the event and got quite cold, but we toughed it out Mongolian style and stayed for several hours to watch the rather slow Mongolian wrestling events and stroll through the rows and rows of stands outside. The next day before catching the train back to the border with my new American friend (and future visa run partner) Stephanie, who also lives in Beijing and also was initially just making a 2-day visa run to the border, we ventured to the main square in Ulaanbaatar to see the last bit of Naadam festivities, most interesting of which were all the Mongolian families that came dressed in their traditional clothing to take pictures in front of the Genghis Khan statue at the entrance of the Mongolian Parliament building (one of the prettiest buildings I saw in Ulaanbaatar). I could have stayed all day and taken pictures of all the lovely clothing and smiling Mongolian faces, but alas we had an afternoon train to catch and lots of work waiting for us in Beijing, so after a nice Western meal (since we couldn't find any Mongolian restaurants open that day!) Stephanie and I hurried back to the train station where we ran into our new Mongolian friend Nara (who we had spent the entire day before with), who had come to see us off with a bag full of snacks for the overnight train ride to the border. Talk about great Mongolian hospitality!