Paige In The School Production

As a part of Paige's afternoon activities she decided that she wanted to take part in the school production of Alice in Wonderland. For weeks before hand she would attend practise after school and at home as she learnt all the songs, not to mention me as well while Paige sang along.

Paige's part was to play one of the flowers in the garden and with her two whole minutes on stage I think she played her part very well.

The production was very well done and to have a large amount of children on stage must have taken some very good creative skills on the part of the teachers.

I think next year Paige would like to do the school production it will all depend what the production will be.



Paige is in the back ground with the yellow flowers on her head

 Paige on stage near the microphone

Paige with a couple of her friends from the production

The Zaisan Memorial

Looking up at the Zaisan Memorial

  Ben and Paige on the stairs

We decided to visit the Zaisan Memorial which isn't very far from where we live. When we where here last time the area of Zaisan didn't have many building around but now the are has become very built up.

The Zaisan Memorial (Mongolian: Зайсан) is a memorial south of the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar that honours Soviet soldiers killed in World War II. Located on a hill south of the city, the memorial features a circular memorial painting that depicts scenes of friendship between the peoples of the USSR and Mongolia. The mural depicts scenes such as Soviet support for Mongolia's independence declaration in 1921, the defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army by the Soviets at Khalhkin Gol on the Mongolian border in 1939, victory over Nazi Germany and peacetime achievements such as Soviet space flights.

When you walk up the large number of stairs you are rewarded with a panoramic view of the entire city of Ulaanbaatar in the valley below, as well as the Tuul River flowing past the city.

In 2003, a tank memorial, which previously had been located on a crossroads between Zaisan and the city centre, was moved to the foot of the hill. It features a Soviet tank from a brigade paid for by the Mongolian people. The tank memorial includes a map showing the route the brigade took from Moscow in 1943 to its participation in the fall of Berlin in 1945.

Zaisan is a popular meeting point for school outings and graduation festivities and now many of the expats like to live here as many of the new apartments that have gone up are a lot bigger in size then the inner city apartments.

Many people think the air is cleaner in this area but I believe it isn't as it all depends which way the wind is blowing on any day.

View from the top

Bernadette & Paige at the top of the memorial

Paige in the middle of the memorial

Parade Of Nations At ISU

 The world art work by the children

Last week saw ISU, the school Paige attends have their International Week. 

One of the activities was the "Parade of Nations". Where each child takes part in the school parade in their country section. There are currently children from thirty three countries that attend ISU so the children and teachers all took part wearing national costumes and countries not having a national costume the children wore what they thought would be considered clothing from their country.

As each country's name was called the children and teachers from that country entered up onto the stage and part of the national anthems where played. Australia was the first country to be called and Paige held one of the Australian flags.

It was great to see all the children and teachers taking part and the idea behind this activity is to give the children a sense of pride in one's own nationality and culture and promote the children to engage in curiosity in other cultures.

Some of Paige's work

Paige and Benjamin, class friends

Children from the different world groups

Teacher and child from the Netherlands

One of the teachers from New Zealand

The children from Australia up on stage

The children from Mongolia

Halloween In Mongolia

Each year depending on where we are Paige likes to celebrate Halloween. This year I decided to arrange with some of the other mums and a couple of my friends in the housing complex to do trick or treating with the kids.

In total there where seven houses/apartment we visited and with the weather below zero you could say our visits where very short.

The children had a wonderful time a couple had never done trick or treating before and enjoyed getting all their sweets.

 Paige decided she wanted to be a dead Cheer Leader

 The group of children

The children waiting for the door to open



Geocaching & Horse Riding At Terelj

On the weekend we attempted our second try at "Geocaching".
What is Geocaching I hear you ask, its an outdoor treasure hunting game using a GPS enabled device. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at the location.

Our first attempt failed at a different location because due to road works as we had taken the wrong road and we where unable to reach the desired coordinates.

This time we where determined to succeed on our second attempt. Our friends Tracy and David decided to come along to try their hand at their first ever turn at geocaching. Ben chose a location in the Terelj National Park from the website    www.geocaching.com  This time there where no road works so we got to the location ok and then had to walk abut 500 meters and try and find the container from the clues we are given for the location on the web site.
After doing some climbing it was Tracy who spotted the geocach and it was Paige who had the honor of opening the container to see what treasures we would find.
Ben wrote our details in the note book and we replaced the container back for the next people to find. We found business cards, a small rubber ball, pins and band-aids. It was wonderful to succeed and having Tracy and David enjoying the adventure with us was really fun not to mention the extra sets of eyes was really helpful.
After all the excitement we decided to go horse riding and find a spot to have our picnic. The weather was just perfect and its hard to believe winter will be here soon.

David, Paige and Ben heading towards the gps location

Up the rocks they go

Ben giving Paige a hand

Paige reaching for the container

Paige opening the container

Ben and David look on while Paige sees whats in the container

Ben recording our success in the note book

The view

Ben, Paige, Tracy and David celebrating success

Tracy, David and Paige head off horse riding

Happy trails to Paige, David and Ben

Paige enjoying horse riding

Bernadette horse riding

Picnic spot near the river

The river views 

Hustai National Park

Having a car lets us get out of Ulaanbaatar on the weekends. We decided to visit the Hustai National Park which is located about 100km out of the city. There are a lot of road works going on so after finding the correct road to travel on after the detour from hell we found the turn off we where looking for. Any roads that are off the main high ways here are usually dirt and in poor condition and once again another bad road. 

The National Park is quite big and finding our way around the park was a bit of hit and miss as there are no signs pointing to "things of interest". I am so glad Ben had his gps as we where able to find The Ongot Stone Monument. We where hoping to see the Przewalski horses and that wasn't meant to be but we did find some other wild life along the way. 

Here is some information I found on the Przewalski Horse;

"The Przewalski horse (or takhi in Mongolian) has been successfully reintroduced into the wild and has a light yellow coat and a short, stiff black mane. Each horse is approximately 250cm long, 146cm tall and weighs on average 300kg. 

Przewalski horses are the only wild horse to survive in modern times. The species were returned to Mongolia from world zoos and reserves within Hustai National Park in 100 km west of Ulaanbaatar. Takhi, like zebra and the extinct tarpan, are a wild species and have never been domesticated or ridden. Hustain Nuruu has good vegetation, springs, birch forest and rocks which are suitable for many wild animals including 46 species of mammals and 172 species of birds."

Information Ger at the Hustai Resort

Camel with a floppy hump

Large grasshopper

Seeing our first Mament

Owl in the tree

Here is some information I found about the Ongot Stone Monuments:

"The Ongot stone monuments date back to the period when Mongolia was a part of the Turkic Empire (552-742 B.C). The Ongot is the biggest collection of stone monuments in Asia, with over 30 stones carved into man and animal figures. There are 552 balbal standing stones in a line stretching from the Ongot to the south-east. Local elders repeat old legends, one of which claims that the stones represent the number of enemies killed or the number of battles won; in another version, the stones are said to point in the direction of heaven and to act as a guide for departing human souls.

Ongot stones carved into lion and sheep figures have particular symbolic and cultural significance. For instance, the lion is the symbol of safety and peace while the sheep was one of main sacrificial offerings. About 600 man stones have so far been discovered in Mongolia. There are three varieties of man stones representing sitting, crouching or standing forms. Sitting man stones represent high ranking noblemen, while standing forms represent slaves and servant girls. Next to them, in the shape of an X, decorated, rectangular stone slabs are placed for use as an altar. It is thought that offerings of food and meat were originally placed on these.

Local goat inside the fence

Ben and Paige blending in

Wheres Paige?

Dad, Mum and the kids

The national park was a good days outing with seeing the different landscapes that we drove through. The down fall is the lack of signs and people at the information ger to help us. I am sure in time this national park will be developed into something that tourists can gather information to be able to have the best experience in the park.