In fact, he liked it so much that we took turns dashing off at a 6-minute stop so we could each have a photo in it.
Ulaan Baatar, capitol of the Mongolia. Note stark terrain just beyond the sky-scrapers.
Kinda looks like the wild west, no? Call it the wild east.
Funny place. 
Even after surviving 24 hrs of funky stomach, during which I mostly just slept, I'm finding it a pretty charmless place. It is in a desert, so comparing to Beijing is not fair, but, hey, how about Santa Fe? The driving puts Xian to shame...the Mongol hordes sweeping down on innocent pedestrians come to mind. We have found a nice little vegetarian restaurant with mostly Mongolians eating there ...go figure....we had trouble finding vegetarian food in China and there was NO whole wheat bread there...well, Ulaan Baatar has potatoes prepared properly (mashed, with butter and milk) and pumpernickel bread (russian influence, dontcha know) and yogurt and blueberry jam. So here in the land of mutton, where we thought we might starve, we are eating very nicely, thank you very much.A million people live here and most of them are recent arrivals without jobs, so there is definitely a rough feel and some aggressive posturing towards the men. People are not, in general nearly as curious or willing to engage as we found in China. Hey, that's their right and I hardly blame them, but it's just not as much fun for us. The majority of the population here is under 35 and they are ready for all the goodies of modernization. By my tastes and standards, they are choosing the cheesiest and tackiest that is on offer. I was struck the very first day with the prevalence of advertising using a bared female body to sell most everything. It was such a relief to encounter almost none of that in China.
The vibe is different here..not so light as China. Not heavy, exactly, but I don't expect to see any drag shows in the park on Sunday! nor spontaneous group singing. We did go to a performance of traditional song and dance from various parts of the country the other night and it was quite wonderful. The theatricalized versions of the traditional costumes were colorful and exotic. I especially liked the shamanic dance of the reindeer people of the far north....reminiscent of the plains natives of the US. Cal was very impressed with the throat singing. Also a buddhist masked dance.
Although most foreigners find the Mongolian language ugly, I don't. There's a lot of air in it..little puffs escape laterally on many syllables. It also has a music to it that chinese, which is mostly staccato, does not. It is softer than the people.
We've encountered other things of interest here. But more of that later.
We head out tomorrow for a 5-7 day stay in a tourist ger (that's yurt to you) camp about 90 miles east of here by a river. AAhh!! Probably lots of photos next post.
xoxox
ChaCha
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