Rain, rain go away

Yesterday was another cool and rainy day. We met at 9 a.m. to head out to a Buddhist temple – called a Datsan. We took a short side visit on the way and saw a sculpture of two deer up on a hill. The view was spectacular.

The Datsan, in addition to being a temple, is a huge tourist attraction and also a place of higher learning. It’s apparently a type of university, and there are a lot of little houses where the students live. We started by walking clockwise around the grounds, offering donations and spinning prayer wheels. The wheels have prayers written on them, and you can also say your own prayer, and when you spin it, every time that it goes around, it’s taking your prayers up to the spirits.

At the end of the walk, we waited in line to go inside of the temple – no photos allowed inside, and no chewing game either, I found out when a monk made me spit mine out. There were about a dozen monks chanting inside. Many worshipers had come and left offerings of milk, bread and sweets. There were dozens of representations of different Buddha’s on the front wall. The line that wrapped through the building was for a chance to see the body of a certain Buddha, whose name I sorry that I didn’t get. Apparently, he was born in the 1800’s and died in the mid 1900’s. The exhumed his body like 50 years after he was buried and the story was that it hadn’t decayed at all.

After that, we headed over to a Mongolian restaurant for lunch. We had a beet and apple salad, which was surprisingly good, mashed flour w/ some kind of seasoning, soup with lamp, posey, and sausage. Then, we were supposed to go an Ethnographic museum, but since it was all outdoors and the weather wasn’t cooperating, we instead went to a local history museum. There was a special exhibition going on from some famous Buryat artist. His sculptures were amazing. I left my camera in the car, so I’ll have to get pictures from the other team members…

After the museum, off to a local theater. We hadn’t been told what kind of concert we’d be seeing, and it turns out it was the kick off for the city celebration. It started out promising, with the introduction of Ms. Ulan Ude and some women in gorgeous costumes. Then, for an hour and a half, we listened to speeches in Russian and watched dignitaries, politicians and business men receive awards. Finally, there was a dance performance, which made the long presentation worthwhile. We saw all different kinds of dances, Buryat, historical Russian, Indian, Spanish, and some folk music was also performed.

The mayor was having a private dinner, which the team had been invited to, so we headed that way after the concert. The restaurant was Ulan Ude’s version of Joe T. Garcia’s, with a huge outdoor patio, with a portion covered. We got there about 7 p.m. The tables where set up very grandly, with wine, vodka, juice and water, and meats, tarts, bread, and salmon to start. As everyone enjoyed the appetizers, the entertainment went back and forth between people making toasts, and the performers from the earlier concert taking turns on the stage. There were probably about 100 people at the dinner. Everyone was brought a salmon dish, then chai. It was about 9 o’clock, and Mark, Ora, Tracy and I had planned to try and get a club that night since we never made it out in Irkutsk. We figured the dinner was about to wrap up, so I called Val and he came and picked me up. Of course, right as he got there, they brought out sashleek, and I found out later they also brought pork chops after that!

I seriously didn’t need anything else to eat though, so it was really okay that I left when I did. I came home, changed, and we went back out to Fabrica (means factory in English, and the club used to be a poultry factory). It was a huge place – a multiplex, billiards hall, night club and pizza joint. Tracy and Julia (local girl who had been with us all day – her mom is a Rotarian, and Julia spent some time in Kansas as a nanny. Her English is amazing.) got there right after I did, so we headed up to the club. Val and Jinya came along as well, and Julia’s mom and Sergei, the club president, were also there. It was techno night at the club, so we hung out and danced. About 1:30, I was pretty much done and I could tell Val and Jinya were, too, so we came back home.

I got up this morning, prepared to head out for another full day starting at 10 a.m. After my shower, Val told me he’d got a phone call and the other team members had stayed out until 4 a.m. (clubs here close at 6 a.m.), so we weren’t going to do the city celebration things today, but were getting together tonight for the concert instead. I went back to bed, am catching up here, and then I don’t know what! It’s about 12:30 now, so I don’t know if we’ll go out and about, or just hang here. Val and Jinya have the day off since it’s the city holiday.

I don’t know if I’ll get any more pictures up anytime soon, since I found out the folks here are charged by internet usage based on traffic. I’ll keep downloading them to a flash drive, so that way if I do make it to an internet café I can post them.

Da zaftra! (until tomorrow)