Climbing Foothills in Mongolia

All is well in sunny Mongolia :) Life is busy, with spending time with Kathy, friends, teachers and students, and with teaching at the university and taking care of my director duties. Thursday was Women's Day in Mongolia, an official national holiday. Women's Day is a holiday begun during the USSR days and is generally observed in countries that were or are communist.

For Kathy and I, we enjoyed a day with some friends hiking up some foothills south of Ulaanbaatar in an area known as Zaisan. The hike was great. The area is called because of a Russian war memorial built on a hill there. The temperature was about 15 degrees F (-9C), the sky was sunny with a bit of clouds, and there was little wind. Our group was Kathy, teachers Sunny and Sara, and students Cici, Aylana, Uka, Undraa, Sara, and me. Great group :) We took a bus that stopped south of the Zaisan monument. From there we walked east up a high foothill and then along the ridge. The views were really nice. From the ridge one can see the city sprawled out to the north. We were surprised to see how smokey the city was. Living in the city day to day, we can't always see how bad the smoke is. I thought the air was quite clear that day until we saw the view from the foothills.

Anyway, what a privilege to experience these little adventures like climbing the foothills outside the city!!

Kathy enjoying the view

Cici and Sara !

Uka, Aylana and I enjoying a break :)

Kathy brought hot tea for everyone :)

Sara, a teacher from Oklahoma :)

a view of a portion of the city

an observation structure

Undraa, Sara, me, Aylana, Cici, Uka and Sara

Undraa :)

Sara and Cici

Uka, Aylana, Sara, Undraa, Sara and Cici

Cici and me :)

another view of the city

Aylana :)