Thursday, September 10, 2009

Day2-3 Mongolia

Day 1 in Mongolia was amazing..

Day 2 even better..

Day 2 dawned with another beautiful sunrise.  Another early morning breakfast with the team and then Monica and I headed to the hospital where they had asked me to round with them and to give a couple of talks before our afternoon lecture series.  They presented some fascinating cases to me, I helped as I could, I gave my lectures.  For 3 hours, I spent time with the doctors in the NICU in UB, answering their questions, awed by the combination of what they could do and what they couldn't.  We discussed the plans for the next day and we headed to a late lunch with our team.

My jet lag demanded an easy afternoon, so we went back to the hotel.  I helped Monica fine tune her talk for the next day, finished mine, caught up on some things and headed downstairs to meet up with our group for our evening.  On tap that night...

A visit to the High Lama of Mongolia who had granted us a private audience and then agreed to dine with us afterwards.  After a cab drive in which my new friends and I all told each other our wishes for our funerals and where our wills were, we arrived at the Buddhist temple that is the Lama's home.  We spent about an hour with him discussing the ways to integrate Eastern and Western medicine.  He presented each of us with Buddhist prayer shawls and an envelope of sacred earth that we were to put in a water way at home when we make a wish.

A portion of the group with the Lama!
Then we headed out to dinner with the Lama as our culinary gruide.  We went to a "hot pot" restaurant.  Much hilarity ensued.  I have never laughed so hard or been so entertained by my company.  We all ate bull penis and you know what, it isn't bad.
Thoroughly content we headed home.  Day 2 in Mongolia= undescribably amazing!!
Day 3 was tame by the prior days standards, but more of the same.  We awoke early, dined with the team headed to the hospital. Spent the morning teaching on the NICU floor.  Gave my talks in the afternoon.  Dinner with the other women on the trip.  Day 3 may have been tame by the standards set by the prior days, but filled with laughter and hopefully, good experiences for both us and the Mongolian physicians we are trying to support...

3 comments:

Victoria Nelson said...

girl, you ARE adventurous. keep these posts coming. im enjoying them thoroughly. i love to see all the 'hot pots' you are going to =)
love,
victoria

Bernadette said...

Was the bull penis fried? Cus you know everything tastes awesome when it's fried! :)

Dr. Lisa said...

Bull penis (Nu Bien) was boiled in broth. But it actually was tender and tasty. Weird.

Miss you my friends