July 22 (Tuesday) – Choijin Lama Temple, A Hot Pot Lunch and some Shopping And a Rainbow

Today is a “day of leisure”, inserted as either time off or finishing up anything on the itinerary that we have missed in Ulaanbaatar or in case the everchanging flights to Western Mongolia changed.  And we have stuff to finish up so, we hit was the Choijin Lama Temple Museum.  It is just behind the hotel so we walked over.  It is in very good condition with several buildings full of Buddha’s and lovely art and details.

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More Choijin Lama Temple
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Completing this ends the official sightseeing.  So we headed to the official Government shopping mall and headed straight to floor 6 where all things Mongolian were available.  There was a lot of leather goods and clothing and lots of tchotchkes.  Some looked authentically Mongolian or Mongolian themed and others were just plain old souvenirs.

There were a few interesting displays of “old” items (as in, we remember similar items from our youth).  Liam was impressed.  We did find a few coloring books for Atlas but not much else.

Then it was off for a hot pot lunch.  The hot pot table was most interesting.  Each place setting had a burner built into the table surface.  Each person got their own pot of starter liquids.  We had water for vegetarians, the others had beef broth.  We ordered large platters of mixed vegetables and beef that were accompanied by many bowls of condiments.  The burners heated the broth and we added whatever goodies we wanted into the pot to cook.  Messy but very tasty.  Paul, Jessica, and Liam finally were able to get milkshakes for dessert. 

Then we went back to the hotel for an easy afternoon while Jessica was borne off to a nearby park where she was looking forward to a hike.

And time was spent packing as tomorrow we fly to Western Mongolia and the carryon allowance is very limited. 

And in the early evening we got a text from Jessica to check out the rainbow.  There was a glorious double rainbow straight out our windows.  What a glorious way to end the day.