let's have a drink !

Japan in summer is hell : 33-36 degrees in south, plus 70-80% of humidity. You basically feel to be non-stop in a sauna and need a drink every hour. And it is not specially better in Tokyo !
Hopefully, japanese people are great and in such conditions, if you are thirsty, even in the middle of the countryside, you will find a drink distributor at least in the next km, and every 500 meters in Tokyo.
They are everywhere, with a wide range of choice and illuminate the streets in the night like our christmas trees.
And of course, during the cold winter, you can get hot drinks from those fantastic machines !

tea plantation

It's always strange to see the real plant of food that you eat everyday, packed in a plastic box. For example, i stupidly thought that rice was growing in the earth until I saw the rice fields, ready to be harvested in Kaseda. Well, it looks like wheat !
Then, have you ever seen a broccoli plant ? There was some in Kozy's parents garden.
Otherwise, I was especially interested into tea trees, as I love japanese green tea. It was another surprise !

A tea plantation in Kirishima region. The ventilators help to avoid frost in winter.

goya, but not the painter

I always enjoy the vegetable area of supermarkets of a foreigner country and try to find a fruit of a vegetable that I don't know.
Well...the shops in Khovd didn't propose a wide range of choice (carot, onions, potatoes and cabbage). But in Japan, I was constantly discovering something new and sometime pretty strange. Here is a goya, a kind of cucumber, very bitter, found in the fantastic garden of Kozy's parents.

itadakimasu !

When you go in a japanese restaurant, no need to read japanese to understand what you will eat, most of the time, all the dishes are shown in the window.
...Don't worry about freshness of the food, it's only wax or plastic !
Bon appétit !

Trip to taiga : the Tsaatan people

The Tsaatan people are ethnically tuvan and have been stuck in Mongolia during the second world war. They are quite few, about 300, still living nomadically in the taiga in winter or on higher places in summer. The summer camp we visited had about 25 families, spread sometime far from each other.


The summer tipi that our host family used is bigger than the winter one but some people still use the winter one in summer. The height of the winter's one is just enough to stand up in the middle.
The oven is always in the center. As the temperature was like winter in Switzerland or Japan, there was always a fire to heat the tipi.

Dried reindeer meat. In opposition to most of the reindeers herders in the world, the Tsaatan rarely eat their reindeers. They will sometime slaughter an old reindeer and dry its meat to keep it as long as possible.

The reindeer milk is very precious to make cheese (which tastes almost like Emmenthal !) or butter. We both liked it very much.

The boy of the host family was specially shy but very friendly with his reindeers.

Salad of the days "without electricity"

Because of a major storm in Russia and north of Mongolia, Khovd and all the Western part of Mongolia don't have electricity for already 10 days. 21 pylones fell down and it will take a while until mongol people repare them...Depending who you ask, electricity might come back in 5 days, 2 weeks or on 1st of June.

It took us some days to be organised without electricity. As our cooker needed electricity, we couldn't cook until we could catch a precious gaz-cooker. So, we made saldads...
One good discovery: Salad of "days without electricity":
- a can of tunafish (from Korea)
- a can of green peas (from Russia)
- gherkins
- mayonaise
You mix everything and it's delicious !
...And don't forget candles !

Buuz

Buuz is one of the essential dish of mongolia. It's like dumpling with a LOT of meat inside. Let's see how to make it:
- Smash the meat and wrap it in paste
- Put some salt in boiled water

- Put buuz on a wire plate and steam them in a big stove

- Wait about 20 minutes and it's ready !

This family's one was quiet good !

Kazakh New Year

Last saturday, on 22nd of March, it was the Kazakh New Year. As there are many kazakh in the region, specially in the north, we could enjoy the party !
Kozy and me joined some peacecorps (american volontiers) to go to Khovd Sum, 40 mn by car (12 people in a Jeep...) on a ghostly track.
Then, we were invited by 4 families, one after one, to share their meal. A good occasion to eat local food...which is a little bit better (it seems) than the mongol food. Of course, the big meat plate is in the center and actually...it was quite good !
Here's the family, Kozy and all the peacecorps.

It was also occasion to see wrestling competition, a bit outside of the village.

The wrestler who just win will imitate the eagle flying and the looser have to go under his arms.