Yesterday we packed a picnic, got on many, many layers of clothes & met up with our new friends, from the next building. Mark is Australian, Pilsoon is Korean. Their 2 daughters are Esme's good friends. We all piled into their Toyota landcruser & headed for the countryside.
On our way to the riverbank we made a couple new trails & arrived on the frozen riverbank. The kids took their sleds & skates, we took the firewood, food & hot drinks to enjoy. The 1st thing we did was make a small fire pit, then we went looking for small sticks to light the fire. The wood seemed dry, but was not the easy to start. The kids put their skates on, but -35 Celsius was too cold for their feet so instead they went sledding on the riverbank.
An hour after playing on the riverbank we took our picnic lunch out to eat. We laughed & laughed when eating our lunch. 10 minutes after making the hot chocolate it had completely froze in some of our cups & our sandwiches (they were in a plastic container, & in an isolated bag) completely froze. Here is how we defrosted them.
After lunch we couldn't feel our hands & feet because they were so cold, but held on for another hour because it was nice to be outside the city & were having so much fun. The Mongolian countryside is so beautiful.
Here is a picture of the dog (our new friend) that came out of nowhere chased us 2km to the riverbank (a ger nowhere in site), sat watching us eat, played with the kids & chased us 2km on the way back to the city.
