“Bring It On” in London: Can’t Go Wrong with This Much Funby Randi / August 9, 2018
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24 Hours in Liverpool: A Quick Tour of Beatlemania, Museums, and Other Sights
Almost one year ago, as we traveled across China by train, we were arriving in Xi’an to see the famed Terracotta Army and its thousands of impressive underground Warriors. If you followed along that journey, or just read that post, you know that seeing the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, although clearly amazing, was quite the harrowing experience. See, China has a lot of people. And most of those people were also trying to look into the excavated pits to see some of the Warriors when we were. To be fair that was our fault for going in August. We didn’t get the best view, and it was probably the most stressed out I’ve ever been. Haha that’s not true I’m stressed out all the time but still, wow. So when we heard that the Terracotta warriors (not all; there are thousands) were going on tour, and one of those tour stops would be Liverpool, we thought 1) jfc we went all the way to Xi’an to see them and they are coming a mere two hours from home?? 1b) it’s okay Xi’an was amazing and it was worth going, and 2) we should go to Liverpool and see our old friends again! So we did. And we liked it, and we loved it.
We made a weekend out of the visit, and we really enjoyed ourselves more than we expected. Liverpool (pronounced LIV POOOO) is way on the opposite side of the country; here in London we’re in the southeast bit and Liverpool is all the way up on the northwest coast. It looks like it should be a pretty substantial journey to get there, but it’s a 2 1/2 hour train. Lol England is baby sized.
We had our Terracotta Take 2 Tickets booked for Saturday afternoon, so we had time to stroll around and get a feel for the city first. I was a little biased towards liking it even before we explored, though, because I recently learned that the Liverpool football club’s team song is “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, as in the big song from “Carousel”. See, sports fans can be musical theatre fans too! I love that so much and I wonder if LFC fans are extra keen to see “Carousel” when it plays (side note you have until September 16 to catch the current Broadway revival!). We arrived the day of Liverpool’s Pride parade, so the city center was extra crowded (like Xi’an!) and extra colorful for us. We found ourselves on the famous Mathew street (one t for real), where we instantly became two of many tourists taking pictures of Beatles statues outside the famous Cavern Club, where the Beatles first became popular, playing super long sets during almost 300 appearances there. Of course, they were known as the Quarrymen at that time, and the position of Ringo was being filled by Pete Best. (I’ll tell you how I learned things infra.)
would legit die laughing if fancy singing was liverpool for opera
The Cavern Club is where Brian Epstein, who would become the Beatles manager, first saw the group perform. During their performances in the early years, the boys would wear jeans and leather jackets, and they would smoke and drink the whole time. Omg and the stage was in the basement and there was no ventilation. Seeing the early Beatles is probably every person’s dream but it sounds like my nightmare. The fans were already rabid in these early years, so even though I find young fanatics of any era supes annoying, it annoys me extra when older people complain about young fans today, because like, that was you with the Beatles, dog. Anyway, Epstein is the one that made them start wearing suits, which elevated their whole vibe and coincidentally brought in a higher fee. Beatlemania soon broke out nationwide, and then they took over the entire world.
Epstein also signed Cilla Black, who was the hat check girl at the Cavern. Do Brits really say hat-check instead of coat-check? Because everyone is wearing funny hats? LOVES IT
I could tell you more about the Beatles right now, since 24 hours in Liverpool makes one quite the expert, but we’re going to take a short break to see the big f-ing thing we came for, the Terracotta Warriors.
The exhibition, on until October, is located in the city center at the World Museum, and tickets are going fast so book online way ahead of time.
As you probably remember from the OG Terracotta Warriors post, this huge statuary army is some A-level grave robbing. Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China, ordered all of these figures – warriors, chariots, horses – to be built and buried with him in a huge secret underground city of a grave in order to protect him in the afterlife. Wasn’t HE surprised! Work on the army began when the wee emperor was only 13 years old, in 246 BCE, so they’re hella old, and there’s hella lots of them – approximately 8,000 soldiers were buried with the emperor. Eventually, 700,000 workers were involved with this project in some capacity.
This touring exhibit only has about 8 or so of the soldiers on display, so, a good deal less than you’d see in the gigantic excavated pits of Xi’an. But the exhibit has a good deal more information explaining the significance of the army and the historical relevance of the time period, so we actually learned more than we did in China – probably because all the signs were in Chinese and/or unable to be reached. This museum did a nice job putting together a complete exhibit even though nothing can rival seeing the thousands of statues in the pits.
my favorite sign outside of China
Although, the museum did try to rival the pits. Above is THE BEST INFORMATION SIGN EVER. Let’s break it down paragraph by paragraph, because each one has absolute GOLD, JERRY! First, we freaking died laughing (I’m sorry it was and still is very inappropriate NEVER LAUGH AT DEATH) that the emperor thought ‘hmm maybe I’ll drink this terrifying shape-shifting metal that when mixed with aluminum COMPLETELY FUCKS YOUR SHIT UP [have you seen that video?] to try to attain immortality OH NO WAIT I DIED FROM IT.’ It’s pretty funny.
It’s smart of him to think of plants and herbs to do the trick too, since mercury probably wasn’t so fun to eat, and I absolutely adore the idea of him sending out a crack team of his ‘trusted magician’ plus THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN to find some magic plants on secret beautiful islands. Um, WHY the children? What on earth was his thought process? Besides the obvious “oh i’m so forked up on mercury rn.” Was he like, oh the spirits of the hidden islands probably won’t show their magical lands to anyone but innocent children, so let’s round up thousands and send them into the sea. I GUARANTEE that that magician, if he was worth his salt, took the kids and found an island refuge and was like ‘we are NEVER going back to that lunatic, he will kill us all at some point.’ “Sadly they never return” = “thank god Xu Fu decided to save those kids.”
And lastly, hoo boy, HOW MANY MAGICIANS DID THIS GUY HAVE? I guess if he had 3,000 spare kids to send off on an island-finding adventure, he had more than his fair share of magicians to send hither and thither looking for, ostensibly, weed, but I just love that all these signs kept referring to more and more of his endless supply of magicians. I mean, someone holler at this boy that if sooo many people are claiming to be magicians, it’s just math that some of them are lying. But my favorite part is that he and the fam sought immortality so hard that they tried to ensure it even after they died. ‘Oh let’s put these symbols of immortal beings in our tombs for when we die so maybe they will grant us immortality.’ Guys, did noooo one hear themselves?
One of my favorite parts of the exhibit was a gorgeous suit made entirely of jade tiles. It was for one of the emperor’s family members, to be buried in…inside his tomb…after his death…in order to ensure immortality. Oh it’s TOO GOOD. But at least all their superstitions about the afterlife paid off for us! It was cool to see our old warrior friends again and remember all the good times we had in Xi’an.
Next, more Beatles.
Everywhere you go in Liverpool, you’ll either see a pub with a Beatly name (e.g. The Sergeant Pepper), or hear Beatles music playing from somewhere, or see Beatles gift shops, or statues, or all of them at once, usually. But the official, actually great Beatles museum is called The Beatles Story, and it’s near the river (which is called the Mersey, which is what you will be asking for after you hear ‘Help!’ 5 times in a row in certain pubs). Entry to the Beatles Story is $17 (that’s pounddollars), which seems like a lot if you’re someone like me who is like ‘eh yeah I guess the Beatles were good’, but it’s actually well worth it. This is one of the most entertaining, informative museums. I think the key to enjoying yourself is timing – we arrived at about 6:30pm on a Saturday night, pre-dinner. It closes at 8pm, but we were assured we’d have time to finish the whole thing. When we arrived, the staff was honestly so happy for us. They all kind of exclaimed, “Wow you are brilliant for coming here now!” Apparently, at all other hours, especially on weekends, the place is packed to the gills with people. And since we returned the next morning to visit the gift shop, we saw how true this was. Just the line for tickets alone snaked around and around the entry hall, packed with school groups and visitors from all over Europe. In contrast, on this Saturday evening, we were the only people in that entryway. Amazing tip I just gave you. It was a little tight to finish in time (they let us stay till about 8:15pm), but overall it was great.
The museum takes you through the entirety of their lives – starting with their childhoods, families, and when they first started playing instruments, going through their early Quarrymen years, the Epstein partnership, the albums, the movies, the world takeover, and the deaths/later years. All of it. There’s an audioguide that is included with the ticket price, and it’s very good. Sometimes it doesn’t quite match up with the order of the rooms, but the information is really interesting and helpful.
The coolest part is that the basement is a recreated version of the Cavern Club – so you’d go down the rickety steps into the completely unventilated basement room and see the bar, the stage, and the chairs lined up for the audience. It was very cool, and there was tons of information everywhere about how Epstein took over management, how he and the rest of the band asked Pete Best to leave and Ringo Starr to join, how their early devout fans rioted about the change, &c.
hot tip: when you take your picture in front of this stage, as you will inevitably do, the lighting is such that you will look like a deformed wax figure
When you leave the stage and enter the next room, be warned that the ventilation status (i.e. there is none) gets a whole lot worse and kind of smelly. It was like being behind a restaurant with all that weird hot exhaust blowing out. So hurry on through and get to the more fun times, like the magical mystery tour bus!
not a real bus
Real submarine though!
Move along the halls and get all your timeframes mixed up (this is where the signage and audio started to get confused a bit, prob from all the LSD) and soon you’ll run into the yellow submarine! Guests can enter the sub and take pictures inside, which we did obviously. It was good silly fun to break up all the sad stories before and after, like about Epstein, and Lennon, and George, and America I guess.
We learned a good deal about each of the men (and Yoko too), especially Paul and John since they were the starriest of them. John’s activism was pretty weird. There were lots of pictures of him and Yoko sitting in bed with paper bags over their heads. Not really sure what they were going for but it was anti-war, which is good. My favorite bit of information is that Paul now owns a publishing company, MPL Communications, and they own the rights to Grease, A Chorus Line, and Guys & Dolls. I think it is hilarious that little community theatres putting on these shows are paying Paul McCartney.
John’s white piano
I definitely recommend paying a visit to the Beatles Story Museum, which taught me 99% of everything I know about the Beatles (I didn’t know much before). They have a great gift shop too, with lots of fun shirts and pieces of crap that no one needs but everyone really wants. The shop is open to the (non-ticketed) public.
As a final stop on our Beatles Tour of Liverpool, we drove down Penny Lane. Yes it’s an actual road they wrote the song about. It’s nowhere close to the city center, however. We saw a few black cabs bringing tourists over here to take their pictures, which is probably the easiest option for visitors. There were also giant tour buses but they can’t actually make the turn onto the narrow road. We had the good fortune of being driven down the lane by our friend’s parents. (Thanks again!)
If you came here for the Beatles tourism information, that’s where we end, unforch. But we have a few more famous Liverpool sights to look at. First up, the Bombed Out Church. I KNOW. That’s literally its name.
it’s weird to call it that guys
The Bombed Out Church, named by stoned people?, was once called St. Luke’s Church but then it got bombed in World War II, in 1941 during the Liverpool Blitz, and it has been a ruin and a memorial to those lost in the war ever since. It looks down Bold Street, which is Liverpool center’s most famous/happening/hip af street, so I guess it needed a really cool name. Cool name, guys.
While it was a still functioning church, it was also intended to be used as a venue for ceremonial worship and as a concert venue. I bet whoever set those original usage restrictions had no idea what would happen in 2018:
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I find these posters kind of hilarious, the Gin Party one in a ‘wow even churches in England are alcoholics’ kind of way and the comedy one in ‘hooooly, TOO SOON!’ kind of way. I mean come on, “explosive” comedy? at the Bombed Out church? TOO SOON. So funny.
The last sight we had to see (and had time to see) (time to see what we had time to see! turn the projector on!) was the Three Graces. These are three landmark buildings along the Mersey waterfront, and I have no idea why they are called the Graces and not just like Nice Historic Buildings but maybe someone out there does. The three buildings are: the Royal Liver Building, which opened in 1911 to be the home of the Royal Liver Assurance group and was one of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete; the Cunard Building, built between 1914-1917 as the headquarters of the Cunard Line, the cruise line that built the Lusitania (the White Star Line, the makers of the Titanic, were across the street at the time); and the Port of Liverpool Building, constructed between 1904-1907 and the headquarters of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board for 87 years. The Three Graces are part of Liverpool’s UNESCO-designated World Heritage Maritime Mercantile City.
Here are pictures of the Three Graces with the Four Beatles in front.
Graces #1&2
Grace #3
It’s a lovely walk along the Mersey waterfront to see the Three Graces and the whole Mercantile City as you make your way over to Royal Albert Dock. The RAD (so rad) is a complex of docks and warehouse-y buildings that now house chain restaurants, Beatles gift shops, and the Beatles Story. They also are, of course, working docks, and we were lucky enough to arrive the day the famous Clipper Race was returning to the docks. The Clipper Race, or the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, is a year-long sailing race around the world – 40,000 nautical miles – that uses ‘trained’ but amateur crew members. The sailors onboard are regular people like you and me, except crazy like Husbo P because even though they aren’t professional sailors or really getting enough training (because enough training = you’d be professional), they’re like ‘sure I’ll sail around the world on this wee boat for a year WHAT COULD GO WRONG’. A qualified skipper leads each boat crew but like, what if he dies, Jill? The crazy ass civilians can sign on for the whole year or for one of the eight legs of the journey. The race has always begun somewhere in England, and this past one started and ended in Liverpool at Royal Albert Dock. So weird, right? And we were there for their triumphant return. This whole thing sounds like my absolute nightmare.
please don’t make me do this
Anyway, I’m happy to report that Australian Wendy Tuck was the winning skipper this year, the first woman to win. Yay for you, Wendy! And yay for me never having to do this, please.
As you can see, even just 24 hours in Liverpool can be full of lots of fun, lots of arts, lots of culture (‘that’s Petah Tikva!’), and reminders of your nightmares. I would not be opposed to returning to this great city, even though I was there on a Saturday night in the summertime – which means I saw no less than FIFTY suuuuper drunken hen dos (bachelorette parties) with brides-to-be in bright pink sashes in like a 3-block radius. They really pack in the hen dos in this town, jee oh boy. We also saw a few of the stereotypical stag dos (bachelor parties), where they make the groom-to-be dress like a baby and walk around town in a giant diaper. If I can get through that and be happy to return, that must mean it’s a pretty cool city.
It also had some incredible vegan food; I was shocked at the number of signs in restaurant windows I saw advertising their vegan options. You can read about our fancy lunch at the Art School here, and here for a look at the best dinner ever (, one of).
Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia: WWCD (What Would Chingis Do)?
Our first stop and only city visited in Mongolia (also the only city in Mongolia, from what I saw of the rest of the country), Ulaan Baatar improved upon the food in the eastern-Asia part of our trip, continued the sad tradition of incredibly polluted air, and worsened the car traffic situation so far. It’s hard to say no to this city since it has so many Loving Huts and even better other vegan restaurants (I know! In Mongolia! So many!), but I think the annoying parts of it outweigh my ability to have good food. Luckily, we were there for Naadam, the national annual festival of the Three Sports of Men, dedicated to Genghis (pronounced Chingis here, and ya know what, I’m gonna call him Chingis because that’s the real Mongolian way) Khan. Naadam (for a separate post) was interesting and something big and fun to do. Without it, Ulaan Baatar is a dilapidated city with some temples and monasteries and museums but I quickly got tired of it. Exhausted, really. Maybe because I couldn’t breathe.
Chingissssss what’s up mannnn
After we landed in Ulaan Baatar at 6:30am, we DIDN’T walk with all our bags to our hostel! A first! We had a car waiting for us, thanks to the tour company we booked our countryside trip with. More on that shitshow in a later post too, but at least they drove us to our hostel. Of course the driver asked when he dropped us off if we had money to pay, even though he was from the tour company who offered the ride a perk of the package. We said no and he just shrugged and said goodbye, so yeah. That’s annoying.
He dropped us at the Modern Mongol hostel, which had a sign on the door saying check-in was from 2pm to 6pm, and reception opens at 9am-11am, some time in there. Um. You cannot have a SIGN ON THE ACTUAL DOOR be the only way you communicate to guests that there will be no one to OPEN THE DOOR. I was so mad I was ready it burn it down. Like they didn’t send an email or say on their pages on booking.com or hostelworld that this was the case. You need to make sure your guests know this information BEFORE they arrive. It was freaking 7am! We had to wait at least 2 hours for a person to let us in? Bullshit. Luckily, another guest let us in, and there was a big lobby sitting area so we set up camp, got out our toiletries and camping towels, plugged in our devices, and showered in the pretty big shared bathroom, all before checking in. (This place had many more showers than toilets. Not the right ratio, guys.) We didn’t even care about how we were making a mess with all our shit all over the place. You don’t tell us the details about checking in (not even checking in to the room! Coming in to the place just to leave our bags!) before we arrive, we don’t care about making the lobby our own. We showered so good. It was lovely. I mean it was a shitty hostel and none of the showers had functioning drains (always bring shower shoes) but still.
The day we arrived was Inauguration Day for Mongolia’s new President! We didn’t really see any of it besides this group of army doers in Sukhbatar Square, the main square in UB. With Naadam starting the very next day, it was a super exciting time for the country and capital!
Unfortunately, our beloved friend (and fellow lawyer/travel blogger) Sivani at Ever the Wayfarer was unable to join us for this Mongolia portion of our trip as planned, and we were very sad to not have her around to show us how to fashion a sink out of a twig and some fabric as we knew she could have once we were sinkless in the countryside. However, sorry Sivani but it’s for the best that you weren’t in Ulaan Baatar with us because our ‘triple’ room barely fit one person. We had to put all of our stuff on the bunkbeds because there was no floor space! You would have been sleeping with all my peanut butter and accidentally vegan cookie finds! (Actually that sounds amazing.) Also, we learned that despite appearances (of the lobby), this hostel was not great. It attracted all the crowds I despise: young teenage blonde girls who facetimed their boyfriends all night every night without regard for how much bandwidth they were using OR how loud they were being (so loud, heard them always); dirty older European backpackers who do their laundry in the sinks (despite their being a machine) as a GROUP ACTIVITY so people who actually need to use the sinks for regular usages are forced to stand behind them and give ‘are you kidding me with this?’ looks at them in the mirror as they take over all 4 sinks; older white female Americans who praise themselves for how liberal they are (while praising Bernie) while repeating the same story over and over about the one time they told a white man not to be racist (it was barely a story; do more, white women); and generic other yoots who have no consideration for how loud they are throughout the night. Oh and old Chinese men who shout at each other in the hallway in the middle of the night. Oh and people who play music in the common areas without headphones like they’re doing the rest of us a service. So, everybody I hate. Also, the wifi at Modern Mongol was so bad it was pretty much nonexistent (which is why we are now two weeks behind ughh I hate it I’m sorry). Hard no on a recommendation.
obviously a picture of the train station should be higher up the post but weebly just does notttt like the wifi here and it’s easier to type this caption than move a picture
Out in the city, I was immediately struck by how bad the air was. It was like how Siberia was very polluted, but the car and traffic situation here is more like Bangkok – long, long lights, exhaust blown right in your face by substandard unregulated engines no matter where you stand, and dangerous drivers. At least in Bangkok there are a lot of overpasses for pedestrians to use on busy streets. This was a bad situation. And despite UB being the coldest capital city in the world (true fact, though we haven’t gotten a clear answer about whether that’s due to extremely low winter temperatures or a low overall yearly average of temperatures), it was hot and dry and burningly sunny most of the time. I felt asthmatic the whole time I was there, like my lungs were screaming and I couldn’t get a deep breath. That’s so awful! It also meant pretty much every time I stepped outside, I was exhausted, not being able to get enough oxygen. I must get a mask for China. I hope all you republicans enjoy when your part of the world has air like this too.
It’s hard to ignore the air when we need that to live, but the city apart from that was okay, I guess. It’s really nothing special, and the best part of it is the various vegan restaurants which we will talk about separately (because there are so many!) It looks clearly third world, and so many city buildings (aside from the skyscrapers) are very dilapidated – and almost every single building in the countryside is decaying or straight up falling apart. Literally half of the country’s 3 million residents live in this city, with the rest spread over the vast open spaces of the countryside. With UB representing so much of the country’s citizenry and most of its wealth, it’s clear that governmental corruption and mismanagement has done all of Mongolia a disservice, to say the least.
Chojin Lama Temple
There are some nice tourist attractions though. We first went to the Chojin Lama Temple Museum, which survived the communist purge of all things religious by being a ‘museum’ of religion. It was really close to the hostel, so an easy first site. That also means it’s right in the middle of the city, adjacent to modern buildings and skyscraper-types. The juxtaposition of this super old temple with the sleek new office buildings was interesting, like how in London the Tower Bridge is like next to the Gherkin. I think I mean the Gherkin; it’s been too long already.
-OH OK – you know how in the Ulan-Ude post I talked about the lama in the monastery outside of town we went to and his body was embalmed for like centuries (or it was a ‘miracle’) but his head was papier-mache and I was like hey where’s your head? OKAY I WAS MISTAKEN. The Ulan-Ude shiny lama corpse was NOT papier-mache (you gotta say it the French way it’s funner) headed; he was fully intact just all head and body that’s been dead forever but still shiny. The papier-mache headed lama was HERE! At the Chogin Lama Temple. I KNOW, we are seeing SO MANY F-ING EMBALMED CORPSES that I’m mixing them up! It’s like I’m back in my internship at the D.A.’s office! JFC if you are mixing up your embalmed mummies you are seeing TOO MANY. And we have more to come in China! Sorry, I will try to keep them straighter but seriously how do you tell mummified lamas apart? (That sounds like the beginning of a joke.) Anyway, guess who has two thumbs and took a PICTUREEEEE? (imagine me pointing to myself with my two thumbs)
forgive me buddha!
The Chogin Lama temple was very pretty, and I enjoyed it because it was our first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. I was not yet very sick of seeing the same faded colorful fabrics and dingy Buddha statues and crazy scary demon sculptures. I would indeed get sick of all this very, very quickly.
Husband made me do a face hole in the temple grounds, as he always does, so here is my reluctant agreement.
We lucked out with the bright sunny weather for these pictures, but we quickly realized that UB, and Mongolia in general, heat and sun are not playing. They are serious, and they are intense. Coupled with the terrible air quality, the immobilizing burn of the sun was pretty miserable. It rained one day and it felt sooo amazing afterwards. There was actual humidity and I could breathe! It lasted an hour. Whoever talks about how dry heat is so great is making shit up.
After the Chogin Lama temple, we went to the National Museum of Mongolian History, even though I was so f-ing tired and crankpotting and oh yeah, I think I kind of hate museums. It was interesting though. They had good stuff documenting the country’s long, interesting history, from the Stone Age to the modern change from communism to democracy. It’s very centrally located by Sukhbaatar Square, which I’m going to spell differently every time I type it I think, not on purpose just by default. I decided that I deserved to listen to music while museuming because I was still not in a bed and thus super sad about that so I put my headphones in and shuffled some showtunes. It took me until an old Mongolian woman glared at me to realize that I hadn’t pushed the headphone jack into the phone far enough and the current song playing, “My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada”, was audible to all in the room. I hope no one understood some of those lines. Actually no I hope they did.
After the Chogin Lama temple, we went to the National Museum of Mongolian History, even though I was so f-ing tired and crankpotting and oh yeah, I think I kind of hate museums. It was interesting though. They had good stuff documenting the country’s long, interesting history, from the Stone Age to the modern change from communism to democracy. It’s very centrally located by Sukhbaatar Square, which I’m going to spell differently every time I type it I think, not on purpose just by default. I decided that I deserved to listen to music while museuming because I was still not in a bed and thus super sad about that so I put my headphones in and shuffled some showtunes. It took me until an old Mongolian woman glared at me to realize that I hadn’t pushed the headphone jack into the phone far enough and the current song playing, “My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada”, was audible to all in the room. I hope no one understood some of those lines. Actually no I hope they did.
I liked this big statue of Chingis Khan (at least I think it’s Chingis…I mean it’s a statue and it’s in a museum in Mongolia, odds are that it’s Chingis) and a few ink drawings about his time, (1162-1227). The ink drawings were like recent, not from then, but still they were cool. Or I saw them in a brief moment of lucidity and that’s why they stuck.
lol right and left wise wangs
Later in our stay, we visited the Gandan Khiid monastery complex, which was kind of far from everything cool (like 45 minute walk from wherever you were, literally, no matter where, like everything in this city actually but worse) and actually not cool itself. It was whatever. Maybe I’m down on it because the bathrooms were locked and the one staff member on the huge grounds was the living embodiment of the shruggie emoji when I said hey the bathrooms are locked. Maybe I’m down on it because the name translates to “The Great Place of Complete Joy” and like no, if you’re not going to let me pee this is nowhere near even partial joy. Anyway, it’s home to the spiritual head of Mongolia, the Khamba Lama. So many lamas! It’s the most important monastery in the country, which I would not have believed looking at it. Originally, the monastery was built on the site in 1785, and newer buildings and temples have been built up since, though we couldn’t go in most of them. The ground is filled with stupas and little temples and shacks that were locked. I couldn’t really get a handle on the place. (I can’t get pictures to load because Weebly is awful and the internet here is too so imagine another temple/monastery.)
Over 800 monks live there, which is crazy because I didn’t see any.
We also visited the Bogd Khan Palace, which is down in the south of the city close to the Naadam stadium. Bogd Khan means ‘holy king’, and the palace is where the last holy king of Mongolia lived. The guidebook says it’s ‘full of ghosts’. The various small pavilions house statues of Buddhas of all sorts (who knew there wasn’t just a Buddha? Apparently anyone can become a Buddha, so we were told. Didn’t know!), lots of paintings of insane scenes of Buddha and friends and demons and all sorts of religious and wacky imagery, and random objects like musical instruments and, like, dishware.
There’s also a winter palace (like the Hermitage!) on the site that is a museum of the bog man’s personal possessions, like a lot of his furs and crowns and like, more dishware. Be warned, as I was not, that many rooms are full of bog stomper’s stuffed animals. I do not mean the cute fluffy kind that we all still sleep with. I mean real animals that were taxidermied. Rooms and rooms of them. All sorts. Big, small, birds, lions, polar bears, it was gross and unnecessary. Skip the winter palace.
Our last museum in UB was the unique Intellectual Museum, a private man’s shrine to puzzles. So there’s this genius but probably kookoopants man who the staff refers to as ‘the founder’ which doesn’t sound culty at all who has been making puzzles since he was a child, so he was like why not put all this in a museum along with all my weird baby dolls? A guide takes you around and shows you how to do a lot of them, and gives them to you to try. It will successfully make you feel like an idiot. They are impossible to do without knowing the tricks and stuff, but the guide will do them all in like 4 seconds and it’s hard to remember that it was her job to learn how. Anyway, there are all sorts, from secret boxes that open their compartments if you pull the right pieces apart, to those silver keys that slide apart if you twist them a certain way but your brain does NOT want to ever remember how to twist them, to strings of metal balls that when aligned properly make a sturdy pyramid (this one I can now do! so proud), to wooden rubix cube type things that will just drive you crazy. In addition, there is an entire floor of all the elaborate, and I mean elaborate, chess boards that The Master made. He either made or designed everything in this museum himself, btw. He is an impressive, prolific, probably socially awkward guy. The chess boards range from tiny marble boards with coral figures to gigantic (like 15 foot) wooden boards that are puzzles to make the table and board, and then each of the figures is its own intricate puzzle. I mean. Crazy. The museum offers visitors a few of these puzzles and chess players to try to put together for cash prizes. They range from $1,000 to $100,000, and I don’t think anyone has ever won, they are so difficult. I bet Sydney Bristow could do it but I am just not a spacial puzzle genius person.
The museum doesn’t let you take pictures, but if you have extra time in UB it’s a decent place to visit. You could get the same idea from buying a few of those wooden puzzle type jawns and trying to solve it for years and years until you go crazy because you just can’t, but it was cool to see all the different kinds and all the beautiful chess boards Our Great Leader made. I would have called it just a puzzle museum though, because calling it the Intellectual Museum makes it seem like the ability to solve this puzzles is what makes someone smart when that isn’t the case you just need to learn the trick to it I’m not upset about it at all.
Taraji P. Park
On one of our UB days, we took a day trip (with Sunpath, the company doing our longer trip to the countryside) to see Terelj National Park, which I refer to as the Taraji P. Henson National Park, obviously. I think this was by far our best day in Mongolia – the best natural beauty in the country, fun sites, and none of the whole living-in-the-desert-and-not-showering bullshit. Taraji was beautiful (she is, girl) but the drive was a little hard. Haha, I would have killed for a drive that hard during our week in the desert. Coming soon.
With our teenage guide (they all are!), we hiked a nice hike to a meditation center slash temple that was pretty cool. On the walk, there are all these numbered signs with different sayings (of the Buddha I guess?), and at one point you are supposed to spin a wheel to see which saying you need to focus on. I got #41 (my favorite Dave Matthews song!), and this is apparently what I need to think about for the next year:
girl you don’t have to tell ME people aren’t clean after the month I’ve had
Do all the parentheses mean you can replace words with new words? like Mad Libs?
view from the meditation center
on our hike
Ger camp in Terelj, like the ones we lived in the folowing week
Taraji also included Turtle Rock, a natural rock formation that looks like a turtle. Cute! Our guide said we could climb up it so we did, which was a bad idea. It is a frightening climb up very steep staggering rocks. We didn’t expect such a challenging climb to be the result of the guide’s casual suggestion. At one point, you have to go through this hole. We watched a few people and then said hell. no.
see the turtle?
nahhhh
The best part of the day trip to Terelj was seeing the GIGANTIC CHINGIS KHAN STATUE! It is 40 meters tall, but seems bigger, with Chingis just freaking enormous and depicted riding a horse so the whole thing is just so flipping big and fun and hilarious.
took this from the horse’s head, which you climb up!
Inside the complex (very nice complex!), there’s a museum that not-so-accurately charts Mongolia’s ‘illustrious’ history, and there’s a boot. The biggest Mongolian boot in the world.
I highly recommend doing the day trip to Terelj and Chingis statue if you find yourself in this country for some reason.
As has been the case all over Asia, we saw some amazing signs, like this club dedicated to our favorite Nicholas Cage movie.
And of course we both immediately realized what our legal professions hold once we return to work:
na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na BAT LAWWWW
So, overall UB was okay. We had some good times, but mostly we were glad to be there for Naadam (next post) and some good vegan restaurants (actual next post). Really, we were excited to end our city time and go out for our week in the countryside and the desert, because we heard that that is where Mongolia really shines. Hoo boy. Next next next post. Stay tuned for that carnival of atrocities.
that’s wonderful dear!