Zagreb Vegan Scene: Green Pointby Randi / August 27, 2013 The first thing I felt when I landed, alone, in Zagreb, Croatia was excitement. The second was idiocy, as I was still dressed in my airplane outfit – black pants and a long-sleeved black hooded shirt – and it was hot. Luckily, the excitement won over and I began an incredible journey through the Balkans.
Zagreb is a pretty easy city for a newcomer to maneuver. After getting my luggage (one of these days I’ll do a long trip with just carry-ons, but until then…), I quickly found an ATM and a cab to take me to my hotel. I usually like to rely on public transit in foreign cities, but my Rick Steves guidebook said a taxi was the best way. After nearly 24 hours of traveling, I welcomed the opportunity to be lazy. To go from the airport to the city center costs 180-220 kuna if you aren’t getting ripped off, about $30-$40 USD.
Zagreb is a pretty easy city for a newcomer to maneuver. After getting my luggage (one of these days I’ll do a long trip with just carry-ons, but until then…), I quickly found an ATM and a cab to take me to my hotel. I usually like to rely on public transit in foreign cities, but my Rick Steves guidebook said a taxi was the best way. After nearly 24 hours of traveling, I welcomed the opportunity to be lazy. To go from the airport to the city center costs 180-220 kuna if you aren’t getting ripped off, about $30-$40 USD.
Jelacic Square
As is the case with most European cities, the first (and usually best) thing I did was stroll through the busy downtown. Once you get your bearings with the main piazza, Ban Jelačić Square, and a few main streets like Ilica and Vlaska Ulica, you’ll see how manageable the center is. Of course, if you’re me, you’ll still get turned around every 15 minutes, but still. Better than usual.
Jelačić Square is marked by a large statue of its namesake, Josip Jelačić, riding a horse. Jelačić was governor in the 1800s, and decided that Austria > Hungary and united with the Habsburg Empire against the Hungarians’ attempts to control Croatia.
Jelačić Square is marked by a large statue of its namesake, Josip Jelačić, riding a horse. Jelačić was governor in the 1800s, and decided that Austria > Hungary and united with the Habsburg Empire against the Hungarians’ attempts to control Croatia.
Look, princess, there’s a baby in a basket!
The bustling square acts as a showcase for vendors, people watching, and random things like this amazing children’s ride as part of what seemed like a makeshift Renaissance Faire, as well as the hilarious dunk tank below.
A few blocks from Jelačić Square, you’ll see a funicular that takes you a very short way up the hill to an old village. It’s actually billed as the shortest cable car ride in the world. I’ll leave it to one of you to verify that. I love funiculars almost as much as I love the word funicular, but we just missed our chance to ride it.
A few blocks from Jelačić Square, you’ll see a funicular that takes you a very short way up the hill to an old village. It’s actually billed as the shortest cable car ride in the world. I’ll leave it to one of you to verify that. I love funiculars almost as much as I love the word funicular, but we just missed our chance to ride it.
Dunk tank!
Zagreb Cathedral, Glagolitic alphabet
A visit to the Zagreb Cathedral, considered the most important Catholic church in Croatia, is necessary. Without knowing what to look for, it’s similar to the thousands (millions?) of cathedrals in Europe. But this one houses something remarkable: a wall covered in text written in the Glagolitic alphabet. Invented in the 9th century by the saints Cyril and Methodius, this alphabet was mainly used in Croatia and was the precursor to the modern Cyrillic alphabet.
Zagreb is really trying to draw in tourists!
Widely considered the most important museum in Zagreb, the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art is a lovely little gallery right up the hill from the main square (in the Gradec area). And one the way you might pass some fun natives!
Tickets cost 20 kuna ($3-4), and you can definitely take a leisurely pass through in less than 45 minutes. It comprises six small rooms of peasant art.
Tickets cost 20 kuna ($3-4), and you can definitely take a leisurely pass through in less than 45 minutes. It comprises six small rooms of peasant art.
My favorite painting from the Naive Art Museum
It’s called ‘naïve’ because the artists are technically untrained, but it doesn’t seem like it. My favorite painting featured pink cows. I bought a mouse pad of it. I don’t even use a mouse. But it’s more durable than a postcard of it and was only a few dollars. Isn’t it so cheerful?
My real favorite museum in Zagreb, however, was the Museum of Broken Relationships. You may have heard of it, as the museum has toured around the world. All of the pieces come from people whose relationships have ended, and the donors write a little explanation of the role the object played in the relationship. It can be quite sad (as the numerous wedding albums and gowns attest) but also really funny (consider the baseball bat one donor used to smash an ex’s car (I think)). I wish the funny stuff was positioned later in the exhibit instead of the sad, because I left feeling a bit down, but overall it was a great time. I highly recommend going.
The Museum of Broken Relationships is right across from the Naïve Art Museum and costs the same (20 kuna), but has much better hours, open past 10pm in the summer. I have to mention the woman who sold us our tickets. She was so friendly and excited to meet native English speakers because she had been learning English. She asked if she could test out her skills with us, and she told us a really funny joke, in great English, and was so happy! So nice.
Just up the street from the two museums is St. Mark’s church, covered with a beautiful tiled roof depicting the coat of arms of Croatia, Slovenia, and the seal of Zagreb.
One of the best things about Zagreb, especially in nice weather, is how much green space there is. There are many lovely parks where I suggest you play and picnic, especially in the Green Horseshoe, where more museums also await.
IMPORTANT TIP: Everything has bonkers hours in Croatia. Make sure you find out the correct opening and closing times for EVERYTHING. Check with the Tourist Information Center (right in the Square) to be sure. Here are some things I learned the hard way:
IMPORTANT TIP: Everything has bonkers hours in Croatia. Make sure you find out the correct opening and closing times for EVERYTHING. Check with the Tourist Information Center (right in the Square) to be sure. Here are some things I learned the hard way:
- Even on Saturday nights (maybe especially?) restaurants will close very early. If you have my luck, the restaurants you are dying to try will be closed before 7:30pm and will REJECT YOU when you arrive at 7pm unaware that shit is crazy. Most others will close by 8pm.
- Museums are usually closed on Sundays.
- The Croatian Museum of Naïve Art – the #1 museum to see in this city – is only open on Saturdays from 10am-1pm. That’s the only day I had open, but you can easily get through it in 30 minutes while still appreciating it, so do like I did and hit it when it opens so you don’t miss it.
- In July, it can be really warm and sunny and then BOOM THUNDERSTORM. I lucked out and the rain moved quickly (and I was inside), but it was really heavy.
The restaurants closing so early on Saturday nights is still making me angry, because I was turned away from Zrno, which my friend raved about, and I had no other chance to go. Luckily, Green Point, the fast food vegetarian burger joint, was still open.
READ ABOUT GREEN POINT!
READ ABOUT THE ART OF RAW, THE MOST AMAZING RAW VEGAN RESTAURANT!
READ ABOUT VEGEHOP, AN ALL VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT!
Also luckily, the street food vendors were still selling their corn on the cob. Yup, this is the most common street food we saw. Love it!
The hotel I stayed at, the Hotel President Pantovcak, was very nice. It’s at the top of a hill just northeast of the city center, a great location but a beast to walk up if you are not in great shape and/or if it’s too hot. Just fyi. The rooms were clean, and the receptionist was friendly and helpful.
The most important thing about Zagreb left to say:
Buy as much Bajadera chocolate as you can carry in the extra suitcase you packed just for this purpose. You’re welcome.
Buy as much Bajadera chocolate as you can carry in the extra suitcase you packed just for this purpose. You’re welcome.
…While you’re at it, get some Griotte cherry-filled chocolates, and a box or five of Napolitanke. Get it all. Bring me some.
Enjoy!
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Eating Vegan in Mongolia: Ulaan Baatar is Surprisingly Veg-Friendly
Against all odds, Mongolia’s capital city is well-nigh a wonderland for vegans. Ulaan Baatar, despite being in a country that literally eats mutton at every meal and in every dish and frowns upon vegetables, has more all-vegan restaurants than London, and some better ones too (or at least some that I would love to have in London…or at least I’ve been traveling so long that I thought they were better than what we have in London). From Buddhist temple centers to veggie-friendly chains to nearly a dozen outposts of our beloved cult Loving Hut, UB (as everyone calls it) will let you eat extremely well – as long as the restaurants decide to be open when you go.
We arrived via (awful, smoky) overnight train to Ulaan Baatar (train here; UB city here) super early in the morning, and we were hungry. Armed with a long list of HappyCow and other finds, I was excited to get out into the city and find some amazing vegan food that wasn’t cabbage or kasha (I love cabbage and kasha but a month of it was enough).
Turns out we would have to wait.
Remember we arrived at like 7am, and spent just a few hours at the hostel before setting out? Despite researching what would be open early for us, everything was closed! We walked the 20 minutes or so in the pollutiony heat to an area that had one of the six or so Loving Huts and the famous Luna Blanca, the buddhist temple restaurant that is all vegan and yet is in all the not-so-veg-aware guide books. Luna Blanca didn’t open until noon, which we knew, but the Loving Hut was supposed to open at 8am. It said so on their own site. But there was a huge chain across the door! Ughh! So we trekked to another Loving Hut, and another, and they were all closed. Then we tried to find other HappyCow places – first, a place called Love Each Other, which was closed! Then a place called Agnista, which NO LONGER EXISTS. We learned this after walking around a neighborhood forever trying to find it by the very helpful (eyeroll) HappyCow directions that it was ‘near a primary school’. A shopkeeper on its supposed block pointed to a big ramen place and communicated that it was now that place. COOL. What were you doing to me, universe?! By now, we’d gone through my whole list (and on foot no less). We even chanced upon another vegan-friendly cafe (green juice posters in the window!) that was ALSO closed. I was crushed! Ulaan Baatar was my beacon of hope during the first part of this trip, my surprising vegan city on a hill. But, we soon learned, restaurants and shops are often closed during and around Naadam – which seems SUPER stupid considering that’s when the city is flooded with tourists and people from the countryside! Why would you close during the busiest time of the year?! People need to eat! But I guess all the waitstaff and cooks are also going to Naadam and learning about ankle-bone beer pong, so they have to close. There are only so many Mongolians.
Remember we arrived at like 7am, and spent just a few hours at the hostel before setting out? Despite researching what would be open early for us, everything was closed! We walked the 20 minutes or so in the pollutiony heat to an area that had one of the six or so Loving Huts and the famous Luna Blanca, the buddhist temple restaurant that is all vegan and yet is in all the not-so-veg-aware guide books. Luna Blanca didn’t open until noon, which we knew, but the Loving Hut was supposed to open at 8am. It said so on their own site. But there was a huge chain across the door! Ughh! So we trekked to another Loving Hut, and another, and they were all closed. Then we tried to find other HappyCow places – first, a place called Love Each Other, which was closed! Then a place called Agnista, which NO LONGER EXISTS. We learned this after walking around a neighborhood forever trying to find it by the very helpful (eyeroll) HappyCow directions that it was ‘near a primary school’. A shopkeeper on its supposed block pointed to a big ramen place and communicated that it was now that place. COOL. What were you doing to me, universe?! By now, we’d gone through my whole list (and on foot no less). We even chanced upon another vegan-friendly cafe (green juice posters in the window!) that was ALSO closed. I was crushed! Ulaan Baatar was my beacon of hope during the first part of this trip, my surprising vegan city on a hill. But, we soon learned, restaurants and shops are often closed during and around Naadam – which seems SUPER stupid considering that’s when the city is flooded with tourists and people from the countryside! Why would you close during the busiest time of the year?! People need to eat! But I guess all the waitstaff and cooks are also going to Naadam and learning about ankle-bone beer pong, so they have to close. There are only so many Mongolians.
So guess what. We trekked around the city, famished, for so long that by the time we checked all the above stupid closed stupid places, Luna Blanca was open.
I mean.
What a day.
Luckily, Luna Blanca was fantastic! We loved it so much we went back twice for food and another time just for dessert – and we were always two of many, many tourists – soo many white people in there. It made me happy that so many tourists were clearly sick of mutton and wanted to enjoy good vegan food even if they weren’t vegan. Luna Blanca has a simple menu of salads (yay), soups (yay), and hot entrees of traditional Mongolian foods made vegan. It would have been perfect if they had a fun menu of sides instead of just bread, rice, and other kinds of bread and rice, but as it is it’s a great find. Even though they didn’t have ice cream any time I was there (and the menu says they have vegan ice cream I’m cursed to never find ice cream this whole summer), I still loved it.
yes I DO love spinach!
I needed some greens so I started with the sesame spinach under the salad section. I was slightly disappointed to learn that it was cooked spinach and not raw, but hey it’s still spinach, and that probably means I got 10x the amount of actual spinach because when it cooks it shrinks to nothingness. It was really good but mostly perfunctory, and purposefully so. A real star was the Mongolian sampler platter of traditional foods like khuushuur, the fried mutton-filled empanada looking thing, and buuzy (I think that’s what it’s called), the softer mutton-filled dumpling. Getting to try these traditional dishes in vegan form was a must-do, and I think Luna Blanca is the only place that does it. You only need to try them once – I still can’t get over how much khuushuur Mongolians eat during Naadam (like 10 patties per meal every day; trust me you only need or want one). But they were yummy and fun. And, the platter is so big and you can only eat so much of it that we took some of each kind home for the next day! Yay leftovers!
sorry I couldn’t wait to take a picture before trying some 😛
We also tried two fantastic salads at a later visit – my favorite which was just a plain green lettuce salad with a great dressing (I love lettuce), and Z’s favorite, a pasta salad with tofu. I don’t count pasta salads as salad (helloooo it’s just cold pasta) but since it had tofu I’ll let it slide. And it was really good!
yes I see that there’s tomato and cucumber in there because OF COURSE THERE IS but at least it’s mostly lettuce
you’re not salad but you’re yummy
We also tried a shittonne of mains during our visits. We had to get another vegan version of a Mongolian classic, the stir-fried noodle dish called ‘tsuivan’, while we could, and it was pretty good! So much better than the traditional mutton-filled dish, Luna Blanca’s version had soy protein (hooray for you!), cabbage, carrot, and pepper. I mean it’s a big heap of noodles and they tasted good.
dayyum that’s a lot of noodles
this is the ariun zoog (zoog means food! I don’t think ariun means what it sounds like). also here’s our guide book! we used almost every page!
We also tried the Ariun Zoog, which was like a soft meatball of mushrooms and soy nugget in a sauce of tamarind, tomato, and chili, served with two enormous scoops of white rice and – you know it! – cucumber and tomato and pickled cabbage. This was very good, although lacking in other vegetable matter for me. Equally as good, if not better actually, and equally lacking in vegetable matter was the balaton, which was Hungarian porkolt and goulash, the latter of which we saw a surprising amount of in Mongolia and Russia.
it’s like a Hungarian muppet happy face!
But my favorite dish at Luna Blanca was this soup, simply called the Luna Blanca Special. I know, it’s soup. And it was so simple and I guess boring. But it was just perfect. I needed a good, big bowl of soup (despite the heat) after being without for so long – remember that most of what I cook at home is soup. (Z asked early on in cohabitation if one day we could graduate to solid food.) This soup was in a mild vegetable broth and was full of tofu dumplings and some spinach. PERFECT, sort-of-bland-but-bland-how-I-love-it-not-in-a-bad-way soup.
mmm soup
The only low points of Luna Blanca (besides how they never had ice cream) were the desserts. Well, just the cakes. We got the chocolate mud cake and the chocolate cream pie over our visits. The mud cake, though it sounds amazing, was the driest, most tasteless cake I’ve ever tasted, bested only by the time early in my baking experience when I forgot to add all manner of sugar to a cake. It was bread, and gross, and this was pretty close sadly. The cream cake was better, because at least the cream made it moist (SORRY I KNOW BUT WHAT OTHER WORD CAN I USE), but it was still in serious need of a sufficient amount of sugar. And I don’t like when desserts are too sweet! But these were like, sugarless.
GO DRINK SOME WATER YOU ARE SO DRY
meh cake
You might be thinking ‘wait, didn’t you say you returned to Luna Blanca JUST for dessert one time? um, why?’ Why?? BECAUSE THEIR HOT CHOCOLATE WAS THE BEST I’VE HAD IN MY LIFE. Guys, I’m serious. We both were silent and then said, f-ing hell this is incredible. I cannot even deal with the fact that Mongolia is home to the best hot chocolate you can imagine. It wasn’t just chocolatey and it wasn’t just sweet; it was like…also vanilla-y? and caramelly? I DON’T KNOW.
YOU’RE AMAZING
I also got a little oatmeal cookie bag to go one night, and they were great, so just don’t get the cakes, and you’ll have a wonderful meal at Luna Blanca.
When the various Loving Huts finally decided to be open when they were supposed to, we went there multiple times too. I can’t stay mad at you, LH. If you aren’t familiar with the pervasive vegan restaurant chain, it’s a usually-small restaurant with a big menu of sandwiches, salads, and fun but always recognizable entrees that vary a little by region. They are all over Asia, all over Europe, and all over the USA too. Oh, and the best/most notable part? They are run by the veritable religious cult of the Supreme Master a Vietnamese lady who bills herself as an entrepreneur and not a cult leader, and every location plays videos from their cult thingies on TVs. I don’t care if you are trying to indoctrinate me as long as you are giving me good food. Oh, and the UB location we went to? The first time we went, it was playing a video of a concert they gave in honor of the Supreme Master, FEATURING BETTY BUCKLEY. GUYS. I was FREAKING OUT and all these Mongolian people were looking at me.
As usual, we ordered way too much and got to try a whole lot of stuff over a few visits. One of my favorite things was a huge surprise – the Victory salad, a cute molded (not moldy, molded like into the cylinder shape) mix of chickpeas, celery, seaweed, pickles, red onions, vegan mayo, and topped with a tomato mix. I don’t usually like mayonnaise-y things, but this was delicious, like a scoop of a perfect chickpea-based version of chicken salad, or tuna salad, whatever people keep going for with their recipes using exactly these ingredients.
As usual, we ordered way too much and got to try a whole lot of stuff over a few visits. One of my favorite things was a huge surprise – the Victory salad, a cute molded (not moldy, molded like into the cylinder shape) mix of chickpeas, celery, seaweed, pickles, red onions, vegan mayo, and topped with a tomato mix. I don’t usually like mayonnaise-y things, but this was delicious, like a scoop of a perfect chickpea-based version of chicken salad, or tuna salad, whatever people keep going for with their recipes using exactly these ingredients.
chickpea salad wins
We also of course got another perfunctory hot spinach salad, which was good as spinach usually is. I don’t remember much to distinguish this from the Luna Blanca version, but I enjoyed it. We needed to stock up on vegetables (is that how it works?) before our week in the countryside.
this was probably like 500 kilos of raw spinach first, right
I loved the dumpling plate we got, filled with an indeterminate but delicious mix of the usual dumpling veg and tofu. I was so eager to get to China for dumplings that I jumped the gun and got them in Mongolia! Dumplings are just so good!
As for mains, we tried this soy nugget platter (it came with green salad! amazing!), which we loved (probably because I mean it was chicken nuggets and french fries and it had been a month since we had such truly Western food). I liked the soy protein club sandwich (pickle, lettuce, onion) which I packed up and had the next day at Naadam, which was a genius idea and it kept beautifully in the tiny hostel fridge (didn’t get stolen!!!).
the pickle-y mayo with the nugget platter was so good I put it on my sandwich
all sandwiches should be pressed in a little grill pan
We went back to Loving Hut after our week in the Mongolian countryside and desert (next post I promise!) when we had one final night in UB before catching a sleeper train to Beijing. We were so eager for fun foods after a week of mutton (for Z) and rice, peas, and carrots (me). We got the Romanian salad, which was spinach and arugula supposedly but looked like mostly spinach (that’s ok) with orange pieces and a lovely orange and mint dressing. Perfect return to sort-of civilization! We also got a plate of tortilla chips and salsa, which said they came with hummus (HUMMUS!!) but that was a lot to expect in these parts and it was like a hummus-inspired runny sauce (I don’t even care).
We also got a Mexican burrito wrap that was very decent, and a hot mix of like pumpkin-based vegetable patties in a tomato sauce that I’m not really sure about but I liked it! And we got a side of fries. We needed them.
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Loving Hut, as usual, had a very nice smoothie menu, and we tried a green smoothie with spinach and orange and pear and stuff, plus a chocolate date drink. The chocolate one was delicious, and the green one was fine, but they come with the SMALLEST STRAWS IN THE WORLD. It was about 3.5 inches long, so after a few sips you had to give up and drink straight from the cup strawless. Hilarious and inexplicable.
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The only bad thing about the Loving Hut experience, besides how inconsistent and unreliable their hours were, is that the menu says they have ice cream AND ice cream cake. I think you’ve already guessed that they had neither, any time we were there. To tempt me with ice cream cake and not deliver is an unforgivable offense. But I still love you LH.
One night, when Naadam had claimed the lives/opening hours of vegan places, we decided to go to a Mongolian BBQ place called BD’s. I didn’t care, I figured I’d be able to find SOMETHING here, right? And I was being a good wife and letting Z go to a kind of must-go place here. It was expensive though – it was an all-you-can-eat buffet – so we looked at the setup before committing.
GUYS.
It was the best for vegans, to my absolute amazement.
They had a salad bar! With more vegetables than I’d seen in weeks! They had a make-your-own stir fry station with tofu and soy protein balls! They had a huge array of hot dishes including braised cabbage and carrots and stuff! And rice and kasha! It was so much food for me when I expected literally a potato.
my first enormous salad plate
I know that picture of my stir-fry after it was stir-fried is not pretty but I don’t care. I stuffed my bowl with bean sprouts, lots of tofu, and literally ALL the soy protein balls in the container (#sorrynotsorry). Then you put your bowl down on a numbered spot by the giant cooking station (wok?) and two guys put on a show with their sword-like cooking utensils (like Hibachi lol) while cooking like 10 people’s bowls at a time. Because they are more concerned with catching their sword-spatulas after tossing them in the air than they are with keeping the diners’ food strictly separated, a few pieces of #3’s shrimp got into my mix (spot #2). Luckily that’s easy to pick out, but if you have an allergy, note that there is some commingling of assets. Aside from the messy cooking of the showmen, BD’s was such a surprisingly treat! They even had good wifi and I did one of my Siberia blogs from there! For dessert, the only vegan thing was tiny spoons of watermelon pieces. And I mean tiny, like one cube of watermelon per spoon. I took 19 spoons.
Lastly, I think my favorite restaurant in UB was the all-vegan Italian restaurant Bosco Verde. I know – UB has an all-vegan Italian restaurant! Where even is there another one of those besides NYC! (Is there one in NYC or just ones with separate vegan menus?) Bosco Verde had decent food, and I’m not sure if the actual food was better than Luna Blanca’s, but the menu was my perfect menu – sooo many leafy salads, delicious veggie-packed soups, fun cutlet-y things as usual, pizza, pasta, and BEANS! SO MANY BEANS! Beans are hard to find so far on this trip, so I’m obsessed with Bosco Verde and I would have loved to have returned but they fell victim to the curse of Naadam closures.
so pretty inside!
We started with bruschetta, which we were super excited about, but we would have skipped it despite its deliciousness if we knew that every dish would come with almost of LOAF of bread, each! It was so funny but such a waste! Our guide in the country/desert gave us sooo much bread every meal, too – is it because we are westerners and they think we need bread or do Mongolians just eat a shittonne of bread?
I had a just perfect vegetable bean soup (mm soup!!) and a giant white bean, tomato, and fresh herb salad (the white beans were giant, not the salad, it was perfect sized). The salad dressing was so delicious it made me love the tomatoes even! I know you are like wait you just said the menu was long and incredible, but you got soup and salad? Guys soup and salad are my favorite foods. and beans. The soup came with good garlic bread and the salad came with lots of toast. Lol.
SO GOOD
ALSO SO GOOD
Z got a delicious cutlet thing (so many random cutlet things at vegan restaurants!) that came with fries and weirdly cooked veggie slices.
As for dessert, you guessed it – the menu said they had ice cream, and – you guessed it! – they didn’t. Instead, we got a chocolate cream cake – the same exact cake we would end up trying at Luna Blanca later on in our visit. This meh, sugar-lacking cake is clearly baked by the same outsourced company, one that needs to work on their craft. If any of my amazing vegan baker friends feel like living in Ulaan Baatar (bitch you crazy), there’s a job waiting.
I got this cake to-go hence the top icing layer got stuck to the plastic
As for UB food finds, there was an INCREDIBLE grocery store close to the Naadam stadium, super fancy in a sort-of mall and it had amazing random vegan finds. I just got super deja vu – did I already write about this? I don’t care I’ll share again. This shop had clearly marked vegan tofu and seitan mixes in the fridge! And the first good produce section we saw! And Bob’s Red Mill products! We stocked up on the vacuum-packed tofu and seitan, and I will be carting them around until Kyrgyzstan, where I imagine I will really need them. We also found these strawberry Oreos. They were gross. We still ate them all.
we see this flavor everywhere why does no one have the peanut butter? or mint?
IWe also spent a lot of time chilling at our favorite Mongolian coffee shop chain, Tom & Toms’ Coffee. We liked them too much to tell them that just using “Toms'” is sufficient. The wifi here was strong so we went frequently since the wifi at Modern Mongol hostel was pretty much nonexistent. I don’t drink coffee but they had this amaaaazing grapefruit ‘ade’ made with fresh grapefruit and soda water. It had pulp in it! It was sooo good. I would share a picture of it but trying to upload one literally crashed the computer twice so use your imagination.
So, as you can see, eating in Ulaan Baatar was better than doing pretty much anything else in Ulaan Baatar. I don’t know how it became such a hotspot for all-vegan restaurants – I guess Buddhism? But I’m a fan of it being one! Hooray for Buddha! Or whatever the reason is!
Urumqi, China: Qi Qi My Playmate…You’re Not So Much Fun To Play With
After our visit to Turpan, we took a super short train to Urumqi, which is the capital of the Xinjiang region. You know how state capitals are often not the best city in the state and usually not even in the top five? Like, Harrisburg you’d have to pay me to go back to. And Albany, I don’t know anyone not in government who would ever want to go to Albany. I don’t think anyone in government ever wants to go to Albany either but they have to. I still feel bad for my poor law school friends who were sent there to take the bar instead of the Javitts Center. Suuuucks. Anyway, same for Urumqi. It used to be a big deal on the Silk Road, as all these Xinjiang towns were because they had water and goods and people to help caravans and traders survive as they trekked through the desert. But now it’s just, city. And not a particularly fun one, just…city.
Urumqi is booming now with more than 3 million residents (tiny for China but big for rest of the world!) and apparently it is the biggest city in Central Asia (which I guess includes Xinjiang and the stans). Remember how in the Turpan post I said that Turpantiners consider their town to be farther from the oceans than any other place on earth? Well the Guinness Book of World Records, famed chroniclers of all things super important, give that honor to Urumqi. Let’s not quibble though, you both will always stay in my heart as the driest hottest hellholes in all of China. Okay they aren’t hellholes at all (they’re good cities Brent), they just have the same climate as hell.
After we got off the train, we did not walk out into the world as you usually do when you get off a train. We had to go through security again. To get out of the station. That’s how serious Xinjiang security is. At the exit were police and baggage x-rays and metal detectors for people to walk through and everyone diligently went through the ritual but we were pulled aside by guards seated at a table (you NEVER want to catch the attention of the seated guards!). They took our passports and wrote the info in a book, I’m guessing the Big Book of Foreigners, before letting us into their so magical city. Getting a little bit annoying. As I shared before, in China, there is no common building when people enter and exit and buy tickets all in harmony. All those activities are spread out over huge station complexes so that, if you want to pick up your tickets for your next train (as you should do when you arrive to be safe), you have to go through the rigmarole (I really don’t like that there’s not another a in there) of leaving the station, and then you have to walk around the whole damn thing and find the main entrance so you can then find the ticket office. And, guess what, to get to the ticket office, you have to go through x-rays and metal detectors and security again! I always wait outside with all the bags so Z can run in more easily. But guess what, Urumqi was not a ‘run in and hurry through security’ kind of ticket office situation. I waited in the sun for over an hour for him to return! In the picture above, you might be able to see a long line of people from the station door. That line stretched all the way back to be even with where I was standing, and that was just after the guards at that checkpoint checked you out and let you into the main line. The line to reach THOSE guards stretched down the block. The amount of time he had to wait in that line was almost longer than our train here. It was RIDICULOUS.
Fortunately, we had a nice refuge to go to next. To make up for the hole that was Turpan and our hostel, we upgraded to a room at the Urumqi Sheraton for this visit. Of course, that refuge was temporarily blocked by – you guessed it – more baggage x-rays, metal detectors, and security guards at the entrance. We couldn’t even tell when we entered if we were in the hotel because it was in a mall! So we looked up and saw cafes and stores lining the perimeter and no Sheraton Hotel signs and we were trying to ask the security guards if this was the hotel and they just yelled to put our bags on the conveyor belts which DID NOT FIT BECAUSE THEY ARE HUGE BACKPACKS AND THE BELT WAS MADE FOR EVERYDAY PURSES and they were NOT HAVING IT and finally they just let us through to the check-in on one side of the lobby and the hotel staff was nooooot good, not good at all, I must remember to complain about them. Anyway we finally got up to our room and then everything was okay. As long as we stay indoors, away from every other human, we will be fine.
obligatory hotel pics
Before this trip, I never really appreciated a Sheraton or similar mid-level hotel chain. They are clean and comfortable and have real toilets! This was the perfect thing to do at this time in our travels, because we really needed a few days without too much running around (any) and without too many things to see (we literally saw one). Instead, we ate snacks in the hotel bed (what a lovely bed I love bed) and watched horrible movies. This hotel didn’t have HBO like our other recent treat-yo-self China hotel stays have surprised us with – but it had Cinemax. Lolol you know how people used to joke and call it Skinemax? That’s not the right joke. There was nothing bawdy on, just PURE UTTER SHIT. We watched so many bad movies. There was one with Chloe Grace Moretz where somehow she keeps surviving all these alien attacks that wipe out 99% of the population and you watch and you think ‘well she’s gotta be special in some way right any minute now we will learn what makes her so different from everyone else and she will fight something and win back Earth’ but no her special skill is sleeping with a man who turns out to be part alien and HE is the one who helps save her she LITERALLY does nothing oh my god why is she the star in this disaster movie if she has NO Katnissy skills to speak of she literally just lucked out a few times then met a rando and slept with him and the man saves her and some other kids she does NOTHING and has no special abilities except not dying from bird flu or whatever. We watched this movie twice. We also watched Whiskey Tango Foxtrot twice, partly because Tina Fey is great even when she’s trying to be serious and dramatic and you’re like aw good for you hon trying new things and mostly because we have a big metal water bottle from the film that sits in our bathroom for no good reason so it’s like a part of the family. WTF was actually not bad. The third movie we watched was indeed awful. It was called Terrordactyl. I shit you not. Terrordactyl. It was like if Sharknado wasn’t funny, but was super depressing because you just feel so bad for these ‘actors’ who showed up to set and probably couldn’t make eye contact with each other because they were so ashamed of what their careers and dreams had become. We watched it only half a time.
In the mall attached to the hotel. WHAT THE CRAP IS KILLER LITTERING? IS IT THROWING PEOPLE OFF THE SKYWALK SO THEY DIE? IS THAT WHAT KILLER LITTERING MEANS?????
We lucked out with the hotel being attached to a mall because in our newfound lazy state, we didn’t have to go very far for food. Well, our first night, we did try to go very far for food. There’s one vegan place on HappyCow called Yuangqi Vegetarian, and we got on a public city bus to get there with everyone staring at us (we did not see any other tourists in this city, p.s.). It’s online info said it should be open and I was so excited to finally have a good meal after a few days without. I was so excited for their mock meats, as HC reviews claimed they had. Well I will never know because there was a handwritten looseleaf paper sign on the padlocked door that a nice passerby told us said they needed a rest today and had closed. FUUUUUCK YOUUUUU you need a rest?? I NEED FOOOOOOOOD. Dammit to hell. We could have tried back the next day but I was too angry with them.
Learning not to ever leave the hotel and its attached mall, we returned and scoped out the many restaurants on the upper floors, including a food court that was, as usual, too confusing with too unhelpful staff so we chose a Han restaurant with a picture menu. We got several vegetable dishes that were pretty good and I got mapo tofu but asked first if it was vegetarian because it always had pork, but this menu didn’t say pork. The waitress said yes and confirmed that it had no pork when we asked that separately. Of course it came with pork, and when we said (/had our phone say) ‘but you said it didn’t have pork!’ she motioned that it was just a little bit. I get that vegetarianism is super alien to most Chinese people considering their recent history and that being able to eat meat is a sign of being in an okay place finally, so it’s hard to complain about all these frequent mishaps. But like, this was a young girl and I asked her so many times. Blah. I hate wasting food so I hope someone ate it in the back. They brought me a porkless one and it was really good so at least it was sort of worth it.
This delicious spinachy dish was translated on the menu as “Casual”. That’s it.
After dinner, we checked out another floor that had tons of ice cream vendors (still none for me in three months ughhh), donut vendors, drinks of all sorts, and of course bubble tea. We were surrounded! I ordered one and asked for bubbles to be added, as I always have to do because usually only the milk teas come with bubbles automatically. I learned the right words finally and everything. Of course, it came without bubbles. I have HAD IT with these M***F***ing kids giving me M***F****ing bobaless teas! I wasn’t having it anymore and I said, hey remember I asked for boba? And the boy said ‘yes but it doesn’t come with it so you can’t have it.’ I MEAN. Luckily someone else overheard and was like wtf is going on just put the damn bubbles in, it will not lead to the downfall of your (*cough* Taiwan’s *cough*) culture if you put bubbles in milkless teas.
Anyway.
The hotel had a pretty decent gym, with tons of treadmills, weight machines, free weights, and kettlebells, the first I’ve seen of those in any place in China. There was also a separate spinning room attached which is hilarious because it didn’t seem like they had any classes, just all the bikes set up as they would be in a class. Unfortunately, the staff members ‘working’ in the gym were beyond horrendous. Two young guys were chasing each other around the gym floor trying to pour water from paper cups onto each other the entire time I was on the treadmill. I kept looking back at them and being like WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU but they were too oblivious to notice my withering glare. Finally one of them left so the other finally just sat the crap down, but then this huge guy came in, went into the office inside the gym, and put on THE WORST music I’ve ever heard – slow, painful, and exceedingly loud. I asked the seated staffer if they could turn it down considering I had to cover my ears to breathe normally through it, and he shrugged and pointed to the guy as if to say ‘it’s his music.’ Remember that this huge guy putting the music on was not an employee. Seriously I need Sheraton Corporate to care that this was happening. I went up to the huge guy, who was starting to lift, and pointed to the office and the speakers and asked for him to turn it down. And you know what he did? He laughed at me. So I went right up in his face and SCREAMED “TURN THIS SHIT MUSIC DOWN BEFORE I TURN IT OFF FOR YOU YOU GODDAMN ASSHOLE.” He turned the music off. And then he did bicep curls with a freaking machine (so dumb) while making the loudest grunts I’ve ever heard at a gym and I just laughed thinking of what all the reddit fitness commenters would say about this jackwagon.
The hotel had a pretty decent gym, with tons of treadmills, weight machines, free weights, and kettlebells, the first I’ve seen of those in any place in China. There was also a separate spinning room attached which is hilarious because it didn’t seem like they had any classes, just all the bikes set up as they would be in a class. Unfortunately, the staff members ‘working’ in the gym were beyond horrendous. Two young guys were chasing each other around the gym floor trying to pour water from paper cups onto each other the entire time I was on the treadmill. I kept looking back at them and being like WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU but they were too oblivious to notice my withering glare. Finally one of them left so the other finally just sat the crap down, but then this huge guy came in, went into the office inside the gym, and put on THE WORST music I’ve ever heard – slow, painful, and exceedingly loud. I asked the seated staffer if they could turn it down considering I had to cover my ears to breathe normally through it, and he shrugged and pointed to the guy as if to say ‘it’s his music.’ Remember that this huge guy putting the music on was not an employee. Seriously I need Sheraton Corporate to care that this was happening. I went up to the huge guy, who was starting to lift, and pointed to the office and the speakers and asked for him to turn it down. And you know what he did? He laughed at me. So I went right up in his face and SCREAMED “TURN THIS SHIT MUSIC DOWN BEFORE I TURN IT OFF FOR YOU YOU GODDAMN ASSHOLE.” He turned the music off. And then he did bicep curls with a freaking machine (so dumb) while making the loudest grunts I’ve ever heard at a gym and I just laughed thinking of what all the reddit fitness commenters would say about this jackwagon.
in the Xinjiang Museum. Doesn’t “the mortals from the last millenium” sound like a creepy sci-fi film?
We were going to go to the big bazaar, but we read that it was pretty fake and just for tourists and it all sounded very annoying and unnecessary considering that our next destination, Kashgar, has an authentic and still amazing bazaar. So we didn’t. The one thing we did in Urumqi was the thing you really have to do when there, which is visit the big museum, called the Xinjiang Regional Museum (or the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum). Named for the whole region for a reason, it houses some of the most important archaeological and historical finds that weren’t shipped out of the country, including all those mummified corpses I mentioned in the Turpan post that they found there. They were REAL mummies, my goodness. It was a little sickening. The super dry climate in Turpan (slash all of Xinjiang) helped preserve so much detail – like, hair. And freaking eyelashes! There were 21 mummies, I think, in this museum, and they included men, women, and children – including an infant-sized mummy. It was very disturbing and upsetting to see. I think I am over dead bodies, okay?
The museum included exhibits on all the ethnic cultures living in the Xinjiang region, which happened to represent all of the places we had so far visited on this long journey – Russia and Siberia, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and all the other stans. So my favorite parts of the museum were things that reminded me of our travels up to this point and pointed to our next destinations. like this look at Mongolian wrestlers that were NOT wearing the traditional wrestling uniform (speedo + feather boa) that we learned about in Naadam.
The museum included exhibits on all the ethnic cultures living in the Xinjiang region, which happened to represent all of the places we had so far visited on this long journey – Russia and Siberia, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and all the other stans. So my favorite parts of the museum were things that reminded me of our travels up to this point and pointed to our next destinations. like this look at Mongolian wrestlers that were NOT wearing the traditional wrestling uniform (speedo + feather boa) that we learned about in Naadam.
I also loved seeing a view from inside a ger/yurt that had an animal right in the doorway! Just like we saw in Mongolia! It feels like that was years ago!
And of course I have to take a picture whenever there’s a dog.
But the best was this look at traditional goings-on inside a house…in which the museum staff decided it was super appropriate and traditional for the girl to be wearing a sweatshirt that says “MATHLETE”?? We were crying. Whoooo decided that? Do they know how weird it is? The others are wearing non-ridiculous garb. I still can’t get over this.
WHAT WHY
As usual, the other visitors to the museum provided some entertainment as well. I still am a little scared of this girl’s shirt:
It says “until the tears run into your mouth”. why so cry?
I can’t even put into words the immediate dread I felt when I saw this huge crowd of little kids on a school field trip. I gasped, saying to Z, “OMG ARE THEY ALL LITTLE TRUMP SUPPORTERS?” I see red hats, I fear the worst. I guess all these little Chinese kids aren’t probably Trumpers, right? Just an easy way for the teachers to keep tabs on them?
only a small section of the Baby Trumpers
After the museum, we walked around the city a little, and I found my new favorite bubble tea place, called FlyJuice. It was the best tea – not too sweet! – and it came automatically with boba AND weird white jelly! The best!
We did some more wandering, found a grocery store, and then went back to the hotel to scout more of the restaurant floors. I had a weird noodle bowl that ended up being with sauerkraut and not just plain cabbage that isn’t worth sharing a picture of. But I will share a picture of my dessert, courtesy of Happy Lemon drink stand.
Yeah, I know, I am a monster! I had two bubble teas in one day! It made me so nauseous that it actually – can you believe – put me off bubble tea FOR GOOD. Well probably not for good, but I haven’t had any since and looking back at these pictures is making me nauseous again. End of an era, I know. I guess that’s the secret to beating this type of obsession – have so much of it that you never want it again. I said to Z, “I’m like the girl in The Joy Luck Club who ate too much strawberry ice cream and then never ate it again.” Z said “what.”
So, I know we didn’t do much, but that’s our time in Urumqi. It was just a regular old city with a good museum but not much else to recommend it for tourists. It was good though because we needed a bit of a rest before the last section of our trip when we hop from place to place extremely quickly. I leave you with the sign on the door to the train platform (which some of you saw on instagram) as we left Urumqi for Kashgar (the next post).
AND TELL MY WIFE I LOVE HER
