I’ve had that dream on a fairly regular basis for as long as I can remember. The setting is often different, but in the most frequent version I’m at my locker in my old high school, and I feel something gritty on my tongue. I spit it out to see that it’s a chipped piece [...]
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I’ve blogged before about the popularity of fresh seafood in Korea – but I hadn’t, until tonight, experienced the dish that is by far the freshest of them all: 산낙지 (sannakji). I went for dinner with three women who are mothers of children I teach. It was another one of those surreal experiences in that [...]
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I recently celebrated the return of cool weather by getting a new hairstyle, since I can now wear my hair down once more without it becoming soaked with sweat and/or a ball of humidity-induced frizz. I’d heard good things about the digital perm (or “perm-uh” as they say it here!) – a Korean invention now [...]
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I had decided, while in Mongolia with lots of nature and sand dunes and space to think, that I was going to return to Norn Iron for a few months at the end of my contract in February. A combination of factors, really – wanting to see my family and friends… uncertain if another year [...]
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I look nervously at the steaming pot over the fire, and my host grins proudly at me. As an honoured guest at this nomadic camp on the edge of the Gobi desert, I have been invited to help myself from the pot, which seems to contain a whole goat, not entirely unrecognisable as such even [...]
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We went horse riding at sunset, on some horses hired from a nomadic family. Mongolia is famous for its wild horses, which look more like ponies, but my guide book warned specifically against saying so: “If you want to offend a Mongol, call the horses ‘ponies’”. So we got on the horses without a word [...]
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About 30% of the population of Mongolia is nomadic. The nomads live in round, tent-like structures called “gers” or “yurts“, which they pitch wherever takes their fancy. Practically the entire country is one big campsite! The nomadic people settle in small family groups or slightly larger communities, for as long as the area serves their [...]
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You Say Goodbye, I Say… Historical Snapshots It Just Makes Me Happy
