July 08 (Tuesday) – Sukhbaatar Square and the History Museum

We have a day of leisure today.  Because the Mongolian airline was continuously changing its flight schedules it was decided to book nothing on our first day here in case the schedule changed.

Our hotel is right across the street from Sukhbaatar Square, the main square in town.  Early in the morning our room shook when a massive explosion occurred…again and again.  We concluded that celebrations were occurring in the square and quickly headed out.  We missed the cannon barrage but walked out to the street just in time so see mounted horsemen in traditional Mongol warrior costumes coming down the street (escorted by police cars with the lights flashing).

After they were gone we headed out to the square.  Beautiful buildings around the square.

It was rainy but fortunately not pouring.  But we still needed rain gear.  We spent some time watching people.

Then we saw a procession moving across a portion of the square, so we all headed over there.  It was a procession of people from the various regions within Mongolia in their regional costumes.  It went on for quite a long time. 

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More Costume Parade
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There were a few more people on horses.

There was a large poster of the Japanese Emperor and Empress on one of the buildings.

And there were lots of flowers around town.

We had lunch at a nice restaurant in a mall adjacent to the square.  We had good views through the very wet windows. It seemed to be a sea of umbrellas.

We then headed off to the National History Museum.  Native costumes.

A wide variety of artifacts.

And a display about the period of time when Mongolia was basically governed by Russia.

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More of the National History Museum
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After spending time there Mary decided to head back to the hotel while the rest headed to the International Intellectual Museum.  This museum holds the Guiness World record for number of chess sets in one place, over 600.  An interesting stop.

We ate lunch pretty late (as we had been doing in Korea) so we opted for a quick snack instead of dinner.  Then it was to bed.