I have visited my second monastery while here in Mongolia. The Gandan Monastery was originally at the center of town in Ulaabaatar until it was moved in 1838. It once housed a community of 5000 monks.

Although it was beautiful to see, I was saddened to learn what happened to Buddhism under the communist regime a century later. They destroyed 900 monasteries and left only a few to act as museums. Monks were killed, jailed and forced to join the military. To further desecrate these places of worship, they used them as barns to store their horses.

In 1944 Gandan Monastery was reopened but only under strict supervision. Today only 900 monks remain at Gandan.

How we entertain ourselves!

Reading and eating.








Internets








Reading








Eating








....did I mention reading and eating.








Our entertainment center and Amy's favorite movie.

Cleaning our Food

Our diet is limited to whatever the markets have available. We try and get as many vegetables as possible. That usually means a whole lot of carrots, potatoes, bell peppers and lots of candy. Since we aren't washing our produce in the Clorox and water combo we are washing and peeling most of our vegetables. Especially our carrots and potatoes. The amount of dirt on them is mind boggling. We also have lots of fresh eggs and I say fresh because there are still feathers and poop clinging to them.

Carrots and Swedish Turnips.

Amy's favorite pickles and my not so tasty instant coffee.

Fresh bread for less than 60 cents.

Carrots before cleaning.

Carrots after cleaning and peeling.

Our neighbors little dog who we've adopted as our own. He greets us when we leave and when we arrive.









He likes to stand watch outside our neighbors ger. He's not a very good watchdog yet as he likes to mostly play and loves it when you pet him.

Our neighbors right outside our front window from the living room. They've electricity and there's even t.v. antennas on some.

This is from our bedroom window. We see these train shipping containers everywhere. People use them for storage, to live in, to operate a business...lots of stuff.