Outing to Terelj - Backdated

Its Children's Day on 1 June here in Mongolia. I am not sure why. I've always known Children's Day to be on 1 October in Singapore. Anyway, Children's Day is a big deal here in Mongolia. Its a public holiday and there are children's concerts everywhere. All kids are decked out in their party dresses (or equivalent). All cars on the road drive with their headlights on. Its weird.

So, since its a public holiday, there is no school and we usually give our helper a day off during public holidays. Constanze's hubby had to work on that day, so she called and invited Cayden & myself to join her & Zoe to an outing to Terelj. Its about 1.5hours drive outside UB. Joining us are Ally & her children, and Kayuri & her children. My hubby initially had to work on that day, but decided to skip it and join us as well.

A bit about Terelj - I found this information from a magazine for expat/tourists:

"Gorkhi-Terelj National Park was created in 1993 and borders the Khan Khentii Protected area. It is one of the most visited protected areas in the country. Terelj itself, on the banks of the river Terelj, is a spectacular valley with high rock formations, pine-covered mountains and grasslands carpeted with wildflowers and edelweiss. Khan Khentii the native land of Chinggis Khan which is covered with forests, taiga and mountain forest steppe, is a protected area located north-east of Ulaanbaatar that can be reached on foot or horseback."

We left home at 10am and arrived at Terelj at close to noon. The kids had such a good time running around, playing with the slide, swing, soccerball etc... I thought it would be colder in the countryside so decided to wear socks & shoes. Bad choice. It was so hot, I would have killed to wear a pair of flip flops.


Terelj - clear blue sky & the mountain


These are gers. Many families in UB still live in them.


Cayden running after the ball


Kayuri, baby Sophia & Zoe on the swing

We had a wonderful lunch at the lodge and the kids continued playing again. I noticed that Cayden is only interested in playing with the big kids, but the sad thing is, the big kids ignore him! I was told that its normal for kids to want to play with kids older than them. I feel so sad sometimes when I see Cayden trying to join in the fun, but is being ignored. But I do not interfere because I know that I can't be around to protect him forever. After a while, Cayden realised that he is not getting any attention from the big kids, so he went off to play on his own with the ball. Good boy!

We started our drive back to UB at 3pm, because I knew that Cayden will fall asleep in the car, and did not want him to sleep too late, as it will interfere with his usual 7pm bedtime. True enough, he did sleep about half way back. He woke up just as we were turning into our compound. Good timings!

The plant outside our house was in full bloom so we decided to take a picture with our boy.


Cayden's expression when I told him to say "cheese"!


That's me & Cayden

All in all, it was a good day. Hubby even suggested that we take another trip to the countryside again this weekend! Looking forward to that.