Day 1: not in Ulan Bator

July 27, 2008 by Karin.

Mongolians can be identified by their cheekbones. Not, your conventional cheekbones that poke out from the side of the face, but high cheekbones that fit in just under their eyes. I was watching them at our boarding gate in Beijing airport where we were just told that there was no plane for us. And that the weather was bad in Mongolia anyway, so we couldn’t fly there. Except that the weather in Ulan Bator had just turned sunny so we could have flown. Had we had a plane.

I chatted with some Germans and an American before deciding to stick with the group of Cantonese speakers who, incidentally, were the only ones able to communicate in Mandarin with the airline staff. The Cantonese speakers turned out to be bunch of kind Christians who took me under their wing as we all headed for a hotel in the city. We would have an entire day to explore Beijing (without applying for an expensive visa!) before boarding a flight out the following morning.

more to follow…

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