Like I said a few days back, half of the blogs out here in the interwebs about Cappadocia are about hiking. Now, I like to think I enjoy hiking, but when it actually comes down to it, what I really enjoy is walking along nice, flat trails, through beautiful scenery, while snapping lots of pictures. I actually know my limits, and have a tendency to lose interest when there's not a shady bench to rest on relatively quickly, at regular intervals.
Engrish, on the other hand, lives for this shit. Hell, she probably would have run through all the valleys if I hadn't been slowing her down. I was happy for her to get some hikes in while we were on vacation, really I was! And when she read about Baglidere - the so-called Love Valley - she knew she'd be able to drag me out on at least one hike.
Our final day in Cappadocia dawned crisp and clear. That morning I took a break from my webnovel long enough to go to the bathroom, and when I realized it was light out, wondered if the balloons would have already passed. I opened the door to our cave, and there they were, floating in the bright morning sunlight (which I was not actually happy to see...I had forgotten to bring sunscreen AND a hat, and none of the umbrellas I saw during the snowstorm were opaque - more on that later). We went up to the rooftop to watch them for a bit - wondering if there wasn't much wind, since it looked like they were coming down in town, whereas we made it much further south - and then got ready for breakfast, while I tried to figure out if there was a shortcut to get from Goreme into Love Valley. If there was, I couldn't find it. However, I did stumble across an app that had incredibly detailed hiking trails - AllTrails - and this got us out of town and down to the trail head, with some pretty spectacular views along the way.
Sadly, the GPS tracking on it wasn't the best. It got fixated on one street corner in Goreme, so I was guessing how far we'd gotten by how many "trails" we'd passed for most of the walk to the trail head. It caught up to us for a short time before finally deciding we were irredeemably lost. Fortunately, once you're in the valley, it's pretty obvious which way you're supposed to go.
As we moved into the valley, we both noticed a distinct lack of benches. There also wasn't much shade. It wasn't too hot, though, and while the trail wasn't flat, it wasn't too strenuous either. At least at first. And it didn't take long before we got to the main attraction...the...err......heavenly pillars.
If, a few moments ago, you thought to yourself, "Huh, she didn't explain why Engrish was so sure she'd be willing to go on this hike," well, I believe it should be obvious now. Why is Baglidere known as Love Valley? Because the fairy chimneys in this valley have been weathered into rather phallic shapes - like, shall we say, love plungers???
Wondering what time it is? Time for me to make as many penis jokes as I can come up with - in other words, it's dicks o'cock!
Have you heard about the phallic formations in Love Valley before now? They're as expected...rock hard. That said, it just seems like a waste to me that they didn't carve these in the valley with the red stone.*
I do have a bone(r) to pick with Engrish though. This hike was like a giant stone dick - hard and way too long! (If your hike lasts more than four hours, please call a doctor.) However, I would have felt bad if I'd cock blocked Engrish. She made it up to me by loaning me protection.**
(About seven jokes...not bad.)
Seriously, though, I struggled with this hike. A huge part of it is because I've been a sloth for two years, but on a good day it really shouldn't have posed a problem. Considering three days before I exhausted myself on the LAST hike and then completed underground maneuvers in Kaymakli, I really should have known better. My legs were really stiff and sore the day before, but I was convinced that hiking would loosen them up...more the idiot, I.
Thankfully, Engrish has the patience of a saint, reinforced by the fact that I didn't mind if she went off on her own into the hills. No matter how much I whined, she never lost her cool, no matter how slow I went or how many times I stopped, she was chill, which is amazing because I'm pretty sure I was a huge pain in the ass (much like a huge stone...nevermind, I think I'm done). Meanwhile, when I found this cool and shady spot, I very nearly gave up and carved out my own cave home - that little trickle of water had already done most of the work for me. The fact that there was actually nothing to eat anywhere nearby, though, provided enough motivation for me to keep moving my feet.
That said, I just want to state that this hike is a lot longer than people make it out to be. If you hike from Goreme to Uchisar it's 3.8 kilometers, and supposedly the hike from Love Valley to Uchisar is 4.4 kilometers. The catch, though, is that you have to hike a ways north of Goreme to get to the trail head - a whole 4.7 kilometers. And in case you're wondering why we were trying to get to Uchisar, it's a natural fortification that was used to watch over the surrounding valleys. Unfortunately I can't tell you anything else about it because by the time we finally got there I had given up, choosing to sit on the big leather couch in the cafe we went to get Engrish coffee from. Maybe if some enterprising soul had set up a restaurant right where we came out of the valley - or hell, was just selling water - I could have rallied, but no. We had to keep going from there, and even after another 20 minutes of walking we hadn't hit a restaurant. Eventually a man at the roadside souvenir stall offered to drive us into Uchisar, but by then my spirit was crushed. After Engrish had a look around the town we cabbed it back to Goreme, killing time drinking coke and beer before dinner at a place called Soffy's Kitchen. What was for dinner? Eggplant, of course***
*In case you are gullible - the shape of the fairy chimneys is due to erosion NOT carving. There IS a valley made out of red stone, though the red stone is apparently harder and doesn't erode OR carve as easily.
**I stole her hat about halfway through. I'm a redhead, 'nuff said.
***PSYCH - I definitely wasn't done, I mean, it would have been a crime if I hadn't fit an eggplant joke in somewhere.
I beg you not to judge Engrish and me. Yes, during our time in Turkey we ate with the enthusiasm of a Mormon singles' ward at a break-the-fast potluck. Or a Muslim at Iftar. Or, if those metaphors hold no meaning for you, we were a two-girl horde of locusts, devouring everything in sight. Because here's the thing about Mongolia in 2022: we're between a rock and a hard place. China's closed their borders. Russia's off playing king of the mountain. Meanwhile, we can't just go to the store and buy things. Admittedly, when I first came to Mongolia ten years ago, the rule of thumb was to buy rare items when you found them, because there was no guarantee they'd be there when you came back. However, it was never to this extent. Back then, we were talking about cherry coke...now I'm lucky if I can buy a can of coke. I haven't seen flour tortillas in probably six months. Hell, Korean food was one of the things I could always count on, but these days I can't even seem to find sesame oil.
So that's the situation. For an entire, glorious week, nobody told us "bahkwei." (I knew I was well and truly back last weekend when I tried to go to LaRosa for dinner and left without eating because they didn't have anything I wanted...and I tried to order three different things!) Instead, each dish was more delectable than the last. However, no meal we ate the entire trip was as tasty as the one we cooked ourselves.
Okay, let me back up. After returning to Hidden Cave from our balloon ride, we chilled a bit before being picked up again, this time by Tolga, who whisked us off to his family home in Ayvali. Their family business is a restaurant called Cappadocia Home Cooking. And they very kindly let you be the chef! Sure, they did most of the hardest parts of cooking, like grocery shopping and washing the dishes, but still. You know me - I'm kind of addicted to this sort of thing. But I feel like I should get some points for getting Engrish hooked on it, too - not only did she buy the family cookbook, but when we got back to Istanbul, she stopped us at a shop along the street to pick up a Turkish rolling pin. Now that's dedication!
When we got to their home, they treated us to tea and these amazing little...heaven help me, I'm going to sound like a pretentious British git...biscuits (sorry, there's really no better name for them - cookies just isn't accurate), dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon. After chatting with us they brought us to the kitchen, which was huge and made of stone - like a barrel vault? I actually know pretty much nothing about Turkish architecture. There were plenty of jars of canned, home-grown produce - they actually own these huge apricot orchards. It felt really inviting - they told us, "Our home is your home!" (I'm not that easy to fool, guys - if this was my home it would be a huge mess - but thanks for playing!)
Over the course of two hours they showed us how to make SO many dishes. As we cooked they let us in on a lot of little secrets, like not adding the garlic til last (otherwise it overtakes the other flavors while cooking) or peeling the eggplant in stripes (although I can't remember the reason for that one). By the way, I just want you to recognize the restraint I'm showing in holding off on eggplant jokes, in spite of how often Engrish ordered it on this trip. Probably because I need those jokes for tomorrow's post, but I digress.
The dish I was most interested to learn was the so-called Turkish ravioli. It was amazingly simple to make, WAY easier than Italian ravioli. I'd actually eaten it the night before at Seten, but it was just okay. It was served warm, rather than hot, and the sauce just didn't wow me. Well, Tolga explained that dishes that are served with yogurt - Turkish ravioli, for example - have to be cooled off before you put it on, or else you end up with a big, runny mess. As far as I could tell, though there was no excuse for the sauce - Cappadocia Home Cooking tossed theirs in butter with some paprika and...maybe some parsley? Something delicious.
When we finished our chores, they brought us back into the dining room where a host of dishes was already laid on the table, including the tastiest vine leaves of the whole trip. We were both a little worried that they'd want us to eat everything...we'd had to finish the biscuits earlier, although they were so tasty that I, at least, wasn't complaining...but they didn't, and somehow we managed to make it all the way through dessert. It was scrumptious, but I could hardly move when it was all over! I doubted we were going to need our dinner reservation that night, after all.
That trip 14 years back was the first time I went to a cooking class, at Petra Kitchen in Jordan. Since then, I've learned to cook Nepalese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, Indian...not to mention all the dishes taught to me by my OG masterchef, Bronte. Over the years learning to cook has become one of my most favorite traveling activities. There's something about food that is so fundamental to who a people are. There's something about cooking together that draws people together. Oh, and there's the fact that my family is a little more understanding of my rock-and-roll lifestyle when I come back ready to cook tasty meals for them.
One of the greatest atrocities the human race has ever perpetuated against itself is its insistence on sunrise. Don't get me wrong - there is something unmistakably stunning about watching the gathering brightness burst over the horizon. But as far as I'm concerned, you get the same light show at sunset, without the hard morning rollout.
Our third day in Turkey started at 4 in the bloody morning. It's a good thing Engrish and I were both jetlagged, because getting up that early when you're on vacation should basically be a travel crime. And I say that in spite of the fact that I hate tourists so much that I regularly wake up early to avoid them. It's just that early is bordering on obscene. 4 am is just past the "easier to stay up all night than to get up early" mark. But I digress.
The reason we were up at oh-dark-hundred was to go hot air ballooning, which apparently is rare at sunset (probably having something to do with the wind), or apparently any other time of the day (probably because no one wants to pay out the ass unless the sun is doing something romantic). We sat, bleary eyed in the office of Hidden Cave waiting for the white van of destiny to stop at our door - one of a seemingly endless convoy shuttling tourists out of Goreme to the north, where the balloons were raising their heads about as sleepily as we were.
Once we got there, snacks were passed out, and it wasn't long before we were shephered into the basket - there ended up being 28 of us, but Engrish and I weren't complaining because we at least got IN the basket; undoubtedly there were some people who missed their shot thanks to the previous day's snow. The skies were finally lightening when the balloon was fully inflated, as the guys from Discovery Balloons finally gave up their wrestling match against the power of fire and released us up into the air.
Engrish didn't take much convincing to decide that even if it was expensive we really had to have this "once in a lifetime experience." Or...you know...twice, for some of us. Even though I'd been before, Luxor really couldn't compare to this trip - for starters, nobody seemed to have livestock on their roof. There were also so many more balloons in the air that no matter which direction we faced there were beautiful shots to be taken (did I take over 200 photos in less than an hour? You bet your ass I did).
One of the things about traveling to Cappadocia is that, like, 50% of the blog posts never shut up about how fucking romantic it is (the remaining 50% only talk about hiking...it's a very select market going there, apparently). Not only was our basket - including the other two people in each of our compartments - full of lovey-dovey couples, it was also hard as hell for Engrish to find us a hotel with two separate beds. Far, faaar too many of the cozy little cave hotels also had rooms with the bathtub in the room with the beds. Which I guess is nice if that's what you came there for, but the two of us had a couple of good laughs about how very UNromantic our vacation was.
Anyways, if you're not aware (and why would you be, since I didn't mention it when I did this fourteen years ago?), balloon pilots can only control the altitude of the balloon. That is, they can make it go up or down, but that's it. Okay, actually, I think they can get it to turn, too, but otherwise they can't impact the direction it's going - that is, where they actually end up depends on where the wind blows. This was pretty funny when the hour was almost up and we could see the convoy of white vans chasing us across the countryside. I'm guessing that they at least have some idea of where they might end up, and probably choose their starting point so that you fly over something interesting, but ultimately it's undoubtedly more art than science.
Our flight went over "Love Valley," which you will be hearing more about another day. You will also be hearing about that turd-shaped rock formation, sitting on the horizon like a pile of shit, and the endless trek we went on to get there...to tide you over til then, just know it would have taken Engrish a LOT less time on her own...
By the way, remember how we had snow the day before? Well, on one hand, getting to see the frosty landscape all decked out in white was pretty sweet, not gonna lie. But...
Do you have any idea how cold it gets up in the sky? On a normal day? Well, I don't, but I'm pretty fucking sure it's not THIS cold. Every time the pilot pulled the cord to make the fire blast, I held my hands up to thaw them out. Somehow* the rest of me was fine, but since I pretty much didn't stop taking pictures the whole time, my fingers were constantly being exposed. I can still feel the freeze.
I mean, I don't regret it for a heartbeat. But if any of the many, MANY shops we'd stopped in the day before had any sense, they would have been pushing the hand-crocheted mittens HARD. I probably still wouldn't have bought any - if you haven't caught on yet, I DO have the "I'm from Mongolia, this isn't cold!!!" attitude - but I would have been kicking myself for it, and that might have brought them some satisfaction for all the things I DIDN'T buy from them.
Another thing someone should be selling around there? Some sort of harness for your phone so that you don't drop it. I had my Big Gun's strap wrapped around my arm several times, and I was still sweating. We went low over the open air museum, and I told Engrish that if you were going to drop your phone, that was probably the time to do it - it might have actually survived the fall.
Well, all good things come to an end - the sun rose, we passed valleys and rock formations and ended up somewhere south of Nevsehir before our pilot took us down in a perfect landing. And can I say, humd'Allah for Muslims? I forgot, after many, many years out of the Middle East, how nice it is when someone expects - and plans for - people who won't drink. Our "champagne toast" after the flight was prepared with juice, which I appreciated. Especially since, from Engrish's sassy reaction to the Americans chatting up the pilot in front of us on the way back, the champagne didn't do anything to blunt their idiocy.
*Never let anyone tell you that blubber doesn't have its advantages!
My legs were pretty wobbly on the way down, and when we got back to the Hidden Cave my reading break quickly turned into a nap. One that didn't end til midnight, sleeptalking and leg cramps notwithstanding (and leg cramps in your thigh are a whole new level of hell that I never realized I didn't want to experience). When I finally came to at midnight-thirty I realized I'd missed dinner, which was okay since I'd probably eaten two meals' worth of food at lunch, and since Engrish was dead to the world, read for probably another five minutes before sleep claimed me again.
We were supposed to go hot air ballooning the next morning, but before I zonked out for the night, the company informed Engrish that it had been cancelled because of the weather, and that we'd been bumped onto Wednesday morning's flight. Normal people would see this as a good excuse to sleep in, but I'd already been sleeping for twelve hours, and Engrish was jetlagged, so around six we decided it was a nice time to go for a walk around the hotel.
Just a short one. Not too strenuous...just something to kill the time before King's Coffee opened up, in case the hotel breakfast only had Nescafe. And if you believe that's how things actually turned out, you've clearly never been on vacation with Engrish.
As we were hoofing it up the closest 60° slope (because what's life without a little challenge?) the sky was spitting on us. We had agreed that a little rain wasn't a problem, but before long I realized something was wrong with this rain, and told Engrish to look at my shirt. At first she couldn't understand why I was sharing my dandruff problem, so I had to explain that it was snowing. Now, apparently seven years ago people kept apologizing to us for the unseasonably cold weather. Well, nobody did that this time, although based on the looks of horror on every fellow hotel guest's face as they came out for breakfast, an apology wouldn't have gone amiss. Needless to say, coming from Mongolia, we weren't put out by a little snow in the slightest - just surprised.
That said, as breakfast progressed and the snow only got thicker, it DID beg the question of how to spend a snowy day in central Turkey. Actually, one of the things we were hoping to do was to visit at least one of the underground cities. There are a shit ton of them scattered across Anatolia, so we decided this was a perfect time to visit the two closest - Kaymakli and Derinkuyu. The clerk at Hidden Cave suggested we just negotiate a price with a taxi driver, suggesting that it should cost us about 600 lira roundtrip. We wandered down to a taxi stand, negotiated the price, and were on our way in a taxi with wifi, which seemed pretty awesome.
The cliffnotes version of these cities' history is that back in ye olde days, Christians weren't popular and they had to hide out or risk being martyred. Central Turkey is an absolute warren - it is riddled with caves, and the pale stone is soft and easy to carve. Although early Turkish Christians were probably not the first people to inhabit these caves, they definitely served their purpose (and not just as protection from their neighbors - apparently they sheltered here from Mongolian invaders in the 14th century), up until the early 1900s.
I feel like it is important to note at this point that I have never had a reason to think that small, underground spaces would pose a problem for me. This is evidenced by the fact that every time I have ever heard about an underground city, I have thought, "That is SO cool - someday I have to check that out." I can solemnly attest that I have never suffered from claustrophobia (my only phobia, for those of you wondering, is apeirophobia - the fear of infinities). But after leaving Kaymakli I had a whole helluva lot more understanding for people who DO. At first, it was mere annoyance. I'm not excessively tall, but I'm tall enough that many of the rooms and most of the passageways required me to stoop over. At one point I underestimated the ceiling clearance and brained myself on the none-too-smooth ceiling, feeling like I'd left a part of my scalp behind.
However, that was nothing compared to the last tunnel we passed through before leaving Kaymakli. The top of it was so low that with my backpack, I couldn't walk through bent over - I had to duck walk. It just kept going on and on. The group ahead of us kept stopping to take photos. And - worst of all - it was narrow! Two years of pandemic have not been kind to my ass, and while I may not be bothered by enclosed spaces, the idea of getting my ass stuck in a tunnel approximately 65 feet underground is absolutely horrifying.
Luckily that didn't happen until very nearly the end. Most of our time underground was very cool. Engrish found me a very nice reading nook, and at first this seemed like a pretty cool way to live. Unfortunately the guided tours that we happened to overhear provided some details that significantly altered the "coolness" of these habitats. Basically, the inhabitants couldn't go outside. Ever. That means all the livestock lived in the caves with them, and you couldn't just empty the chamberpot out the window. At the time I thought how isolating that must be, but I've just now read on Wikipedia that apparently some tunnels connected Kaymakli with its closest neighbor, Derinkuyu. So. You know. I guess for a change of scenery you just had to walk 10 kilometers underground, which makes it MUCH more manageable.
That said, they did have places to worship, and a winery if you were into that sort of thing, and you never know when you might delve too deeply and discover a Balrog, so hey...I guess life could be worse. Nevertheless, by the time we reemerged into the snowy afternoon, I had a new appreciation for fresh air and the light of day. We were planning to go to Derinkuyu from there, but visited the stalls selling tourist kitsch first, picking up a local folk doll, a smaller backpack, and bottles of water. By the time we got back in the taxi, I was over my panic attack (mostly). However, as fate would have it, we didn't visit Derinkuyu. As we left the parking lot, I thought the driver had turned the wrong direction, but figured he knew something I didn't. We were most of the way back to Goreme when we started thinking things looked familiar, and upon checking Google Maps discovered there was a very good reason for that. And, on the whole, we were okay with that.
The rest of the day went by in a blur of shopping and eating. The skies ended up clearing around sunset, as we climbed up the same hill we started the the day with, to eat at Seten, a restaurant our Turkish colleague had recommended. After enjoying the tones of the city at night, we turned in early - the next morning would involve the (butt)crack of dawn.
After two LONG years, this spring break saw me finally, FINALLY on the road again. It would have been nice if I could have gone to Japan - had that trip I planned two and a half years ago, sitting on a beach in Toyama watching the firefly squid roll in - but that hope was in vain. Instead, I finally caved and went with the suggestion Engrish tentatively made, back in January or so: we could always do Turkey.
Now, if you have been patiently waiting the last 11 months (haha) for me to write words*, you will no doubt be aware that I've done Turkey before. Seven years ago, I led an intrepid band of my rag-tag students there. Seven years before that, I led an intrepid band of my ragtag self there. Maybe in another seven years I'll go back, and finally see Pamukkale (I've been kicking myself for not going there since 2008. True story). I had a blast both times, but I did basically the same thing both times...just with kids the second go-round. This time, though, Engrish was my wing-girl, so futzing around in the city for a week would NOT do.
I believe it was she who first suggested Cappadocia...I'm pretty sure she described it as, "That place with the interesting rock formations." Fortunately, I speak engrish, and I know enough about Turkey to guess, with pinpoint accuracy, what the hell she was talking about. We booked our flights - I got us overnight bus tickets to Goreme, she found hotels - and two weeks back, we found ourselves under warm skies, looking at green grass, and breathing mask free.**
After an early check-in the clerk called "lucky" (because our room was, in fact, actually ready at 7:30 am), we walked down the street to what is apparently Goreme's only coffee shop that opens before 9 - King's Coffee. The owner didn't seem too appalled that I ordered a coke to go with my "toast" (grilled cheese)...maybe that was because Engrish ordered a Turkish coffee like a decent human being. On the other hand, considering the number of times Engrish was offered Nescafe, as though that was remotely related to actual coffee, maybe he's just been around enough tourists over the years to become jaded. Who knows?
At any rate, my first order of business was to get to Urgup and enjoy an art lesson - ebru, Turkish marbling. (Good to know that the pandemic didn't change everything, eh?) I left Engrish to her own devices (which I had no doubt would involve hiking up the biggest cliff she could access) and caught a taxi to Kappadokya Ebru Sanat Evi (or Ebru Art House).
I had a brief run-in with marbling when I brought the kids seven years ago, but I didn't get the chance to really indulge in it. This time I wanted to be able to understand it, so that I'd be able to do it again once I was home. The owner, Guler Somturk, and her daughter were really patient about answering all of my questions as well as guiding me to learn the basic forms. We were having so much fun that I didn't even realize when my two hours were up. The only shame is that I had to go so early that Engrish missed out on sampling at the winery across the street.
I returned to the hotel to find her sitting in the sun reading (for approximately the last time...unlike some people she didn't work her way through 200 chapters of a webnovel during the week). After taking a shower we went out looking for something tasty. After I'd abandoned her that morning, some weird old broad in the cafe had suggested a restaurant for us to try...however, after we took a look at their menu we decided trusting weird old broads that randomly start conversations with you in cafes was a bad idea. We wandered around Goreme's main drag, finally getting reeled in by a big place called Kebapzade. Where we might have gone a little overboard. I mean, this was our first REAL meal in Turkey. After getting to the bus stop the night before we had iskander kebap at a nearby mall, but that was all they had on the menu. Here, we took one look at the menu and ended up ordering what felt like one of everything. And maybe I was just starving by that point, but I still think their pottery kebab was my favorite of the whole trip, because it was so juicy and flavorful. More on those later, though.
At that point, I could no longer put off the inevitable. Although at that point I was ready to be rolled back up the hill to the hotel, I had promised Engrish hiking. It could have been worse - as mentioned in the first line of this post, it was stormy, which seemed to concern some of the passersby, but Engrish was not to be deterred and I actually like the rain. Worse come to worst, I would get soaked and have an excuse to spend the evening reading snuggled up in our cave. My plan was to delay us tackling anything too strenuous by going to the Goreme Open Air Museum. Along the way, though, we got distracted by something shiny - the famous "fairy chimneys" (aka, interesting rock formations).
We actually intended to end up at the museum, really. It's just...the trail that should have taken us there didn't. Possibly because we willfully wandered off it in a different direction. And by we, I totally take the blame for that, because my internal GPS kept telling me we were moving back in the direction of the town, rather than away from it. But the scenery was pretty nice and the trail wasn't terribly steep, so all was good.
Or, rather, it was...and then it wasn't. In a very short amount of time we found ourselves getting higher and higher on the ridge that my internal GPS kept telling me separated us from the town, and I let us keep going, because I knew that this would actually turn into a shortcut. And it did. However, I made Engrish go up the last, steepest bit to make sure before I climbed it. The moral of the story is, if you don't want to pay to access Goreme's sunset point, there's a back way in, but be prepared to work for it!
*Joke's on you - I've written lots of words. I just haven't published any of them because they were fucking depressing. Nobody really wants to read about my nerd cave, or my (futile) attempts to kick my ass into a slightly less round shape.
**Mostly...I was a lot more hesitant to burn mine than Engrish was, but even I didn't wear mine that much.
AKA, the things that kept me going through this long, bloody pandemic.
There are five weeks of this shittacular* school year left. There have been ever-present temptations to murder the nearest dumbasses for nearly a year and a half now, but surprisingly enough, I'm still sane. This week, I thought I might share my coping strategies. So here goes.
1. Danmei: Okay, so I flirted with the dark side before, but for the most part I was in denial about my potential to go full-on fujoshi.** See, I watched Yuri on Ice to see what all the fuss was about, and had to admit it was cute. A while later I watched Banana Fish for much the same reason, which turned out to be a mistake, because the ending REALLY pissed me off. Between that and all the female fandom's weird, non-canon shipping, I was convinced that the BL genre had nothing to offer me. But then last March, out of boredom and the fact that anime was having a dark age, I caved and tried a little Chinese animation called Mo Dao Zu Shi. I spent the next week caught up in the lives of the two protagonists, progressing from the animation to the manhua and finally beginning the webnovel (because as it turns out, if one beautiful male character is good, two are even better). And then I read the rest of the author's oeuvre. And re-read it. And eventually broke out and started reading other authors. So while the fact remains that I have a complicated relationship with China, I've got to admit I find their boys' love more compelling than Japan's. Sadly it will probably be a while before I get to live out my dreams of wandering the jianghu, but for now, I don't know how I would have gotten through the last year - particularly the last month or so - without danmei webnovels.
2. My flute: This is not a euphemism (no matter how many times my Dark Lord and Master may have made insinuations about band camp). I started bringing my flute with me after the year we did Kiss Me, Kate, but just started playing it with any regularity since the pandemic started. And more specifically, since I got into Mo Dao Zu Shi. This is relevant because one of the two main characters controls zombies animated corpses with a flute, and maybe about that time I found myself wanting to cultivate my own flute skills. Okay, sure, mostly I just cultivate anisongs, but you know what? It keeps the time moving.
3. Crafting Projects: This should come as no surprise. I AM the person who spends her vacations sewing dolls, after all. However, my projects have gotten more and more intense. A year ago I spent weeks on end creating a 3' x 5' Space Invaders-themed latchhook rug. FYI: latchhook is easy. Designing it was easy. Cutting the yarn was easy. But actually making the damn thing was TEDIOUS.
I wanted to continue the gaming theme with a Tetris afghan, but I couldn't stand yarn anymore by the time I finished the rug (I've actually only just started messing with crocheting, and I can't get the damn squares the same size). Instead, I made plushies. I tried some different designs because I didn't have skin-tone fleece for a while, made a kappa, a mokke, and even a little goldfish (okay, so the WHOLE year of anime wasn't complete garbage). When my summer course was over I finally let loose and sewed my two MCs from Mo Dao Zu Shi, learning that Chinese traditional clothing is more of a pain to sew than a kimono. I feel like I really hit my masochistic peak when I decided during the first lockdown that I should make a Tomioka-san plushie, which meant that I had to print his haori by hand, and THAT meant I had to cut stencils (because of COURSE I had to do it the traditional way). I've gotten to the point where I made silver vambraces using aluminum pie tins, warazori out of one of the nendoroid tatami mats I bought my last time in Osaka, and - oh yeah - I started playing around with epoxy resin.
Sadly, most of these projects are still unfinished. I'll figure them out someday.
4. Online Shopping: When I lived in Mongolia before, I was an amateur when it came to shopping. Thanks to the pandemic I have leveled up. It started with Taobao...there were a couple of nendoroids made by GoodSmile Shanghai I really wanted, but their price was crazy. Someone mentioned getting them on Taobao, and I thought, "Oh. China's like, right there. Are there Mongolian Taobao agents???" Well, it turns out there are, so I got my nendos.
THEN the shopping became a solution to holes in my shoes and jeans, but since getting anything from the States was a gong show - shipping was expensive or unreliable*** - I had some degree of restraint. Eventually, I started buying stuff so that I'd have something to look forward to when I got home, and THEN I was introduced to an air freight service named Hotel4Box, and. Well. The meme there to the left is all too accurate. Suddenly everything that I have thought would be convenient to have was absolutely necessary to my well-being. I needed fabric. I needed new clothes. I needed an alto flute and a clothes drying rack and inkjet iron-on transfer paper.
I regret nothing.
5. Mug Brownie Sundaes: As cringey as it can be to video chat, my friends have kept me going. Last fall during one of my chats with Baby Chicken Wing, she said, "Wait, you like brownies, right?" I gave her the long history of my students hitting me up to make brownies and how I seem to always overcook a pan, and then she hit me with her recipe for a brownie in a mug. It was heavenly...but there wasn't enough of it. I solved that problem by making it with tablespoons instead of teaspoons (it gives you 3x the brownie) and topping it with ice cream, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it actually doesn't make any difference what brand of ice cream you use - the shittiest Russian vanilla tastes just fine, because it's really all about melting into a gooey mess (although my personal favorite is the walnut maroo GoodPrice has been importing from Korea). And that gooey mess gives me something to look forward to even on the shittiest day.
6. Content creators: You know what sucks about being an adult? Finding other adults to geek out with. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have survived the last 6 months without dinners with Engrish between lockdowns, but it's not like she has an appreciation for the 2D world. I honestly don't know what we did before social media, but sometimes - just sometimes - something good floats to the top of social media, like gold in a pan (apparently algorithms sometimes get things right).**** My 3 favorite treasures are the animatics I found by Limeizuan on YouTube, MorallyGrey's Tiktoks (literally the only reason I go on Tiktok) and incorrect_mxtx - the best thing to happen to Instagram, ever.
So there you go, guys. Insh'Allah we are on a course bound for normal life, and "coping" will become a thing of the past, but these should keep me going til then.
*I believe this should have two t's - feel free to fight me on it.
**Japanese word for female fans of stories about gay male relationships. Probably TMI, so sorry :-o
***No, really. I ordered a nendo part on Etsy last February. It got here back in January.
****Usually, though, they just insult me by suggesting that I need old lady bras.
Yesterday-ish (depending on what side of the international date line you are on), I graduated with my MA in Art Education. It was pretty anticlimatic. With covid still being a thing, there was no chance of me making it to the ceremony, and in fact, I couldn't really even go out and celebrate, because Mongolia still shows few signs of getting their cases under control...although restaurants DID reopen yesterday for takeout and delivery, and I'm at least allowed to leave Zaisan, so Engrish and I got together for Indian and beverages and bitchin'. I thought I'd at least have my name published, but as the grad office had to remind me, I checked the "no publication" option when I applied for graduation - my cyberstalker may be on his best behavior due to his custody trial, but I wouldn't put it past him to act up in the future, so least said, soonest mended.
Homemade salsa
The true upshot of this change in my status is that I no longer have to confine myself to APA format and can use as many four-letter words as I want, which means that it's about time for me to start blogging again. Yes, I'm going to blame my ongoing delinquency on grad school, which, coupled with a pandemic that never seems to end, robbed me of pretty much all motivation to write "for fun." It's true that the pandemic is ongoing, but this is probably something that I actually should write about, so I'll pick up where I left off: Food. As mentioned WAY BACK in my last post, I have finally learned the fine art of cooking your own damn meals, every damn day (ah, yes...those four-letter words! How nice they feel!). This last lockdown was our fourth, and let me tell you, they suck major balls.
Note: Note how I normally stock my fridge.
You may have picked up on this if you're one of my six regular readers, but the kitchen is where the most evidence of my status as a counterfeit grown-up is found. In a typical year, a close inspection of my refrigerator will reveal coke, a pitcher of lemonade, condiments, and eggs (which may or may not be edible, because even a 6-pack of eggs goes pretty slowly for me). Typically my freezer has ice and frozen chicken breasts. Sometimes bread, if I've been on a French toast kick. It's not that I can't cook...it's more that there's very little reward for cooking food that you're only going to eat by yourself. I mean, think about it - after doing all the cooking you STILL have to do all the cleaning, and not once during the meal does anyone tell you how tasty it is (unless you talk to yourself. Which maybe I do). The reasonably rational side of me thinks that cooking your own food should be healthier and cheaper, but after the last six months, I have very little evidence to back that up. Although maybe (probably) that's just me.
However, at the very least, I've unlocked this particular adulting skill. Although my first week and a half of lockdown I subsisted on a rotation of pasta and red Thai curry, I've gradually opened up all sorts of new worlds of culinary discovery. My fridge and cupboards are stocked with a variety of ingredients that I can use to make single servings of different things, throwing in a handful of this and a splash of that. Turns out, there are cheats I never knew about. I finally figured out that chicken wasn't the only meat I could freeze a single portion into a ziploc baggie, quick and easy to defrost in a can full of hot water. I've also learned to chop or grate my veggies or cheese, FINALLY reusing those take-out containers I've been collecting the last year and a half to store them in the freezer.
Another cheat: indoor weenie and/or marshmallow roast
My bags of groceries look less and less like an eight year-old turned loose at the checkout with a big wad of birthday cash. Okay, I'm willing to admit that, more often than not, restocking my coke supply is what forces me to go out shopping, but along the way I've found good meat at our Rosie's, mozzarella cheese at the little shop in Enkhjin apartments, and Korean ingredients at almost all of the shops in Zaisan, ensuring that, at the very least, I can make that spicy marinade that Bronte taught me, back in the day, and - BONUS! - I can make a whole bunch of it at once and freeze that into ready-to-go portions (the smaller, round takeout containers are best for that).
Throw in cabbage and tteok-beokki and it's basically dalkgalbi
I've also braved the pitfalls of ordering your groceries online. I wasn't quite convinced about this one...last summer I attempted to make Good Price bring me a flat of Coke, and that didn't work out. The idea of letting someone else pick out your veggies just seemed like asking for a bag of produce that was about to go off. Just before the first lockdown ended, though, I got to missing pizza pretty badly. I dug up my old recipe for flatbread (or the closest recipe I could find), threw some pasta sauce and mozzarella cheese on it, and called myself a culinary genius...but had to admit that it was missing something.
V3: Using homemade alfredo for sauce and with jalapenos added.
Which is crazy, because I actually love cheese pizza, but my own just needed a bit of something more. Pepperoni is basically non-existent in Mongolia, so I went for the #2 pizza topping, Italian sausage...mainly because I knew Rosewood Market made it AND that they delivered.
And that's how I ended up down the rabbit hole. About once a week I make a big list with all sorts of things I could live without, but since I'm already living without human contact, seem a lot more necessary. Big baked chocolate chip cookies? Better have two. Huge jar of tahini? Much better than making my own! Avocados that I will forget to use until they have gone bad? Sounds good to me. They usually have salsa, but the last couple of times it didn't show up on the website, so I even got all of the ingredients and made salsa myself, which may be the first time in five years I've done so.
Fortunately the lockdowns have usually had some break in-between them, and usually come with some warning before. This means my cooking has gotten progressively more extravagant. Rather than just making a bit of taco meat, throwing melting cheese on it and slapping it onto a tortilla with some salsa, I could pick up a can of refried beans, or find a jar of something approximating guacamole (it's not actually guacamole, but unlike those avocados I keep wasting, this crap doesn't go bad)...because I'd have a week or so to prepare. Not so much THIS time, but some of the others. That said, if you find yourself in Ulaanbaatar the day before a pandemic lockdown, you're better off not planning to go anywhere if you need a car to get there. I mean, unless you REALLY like your car and want to spend hours in it not moving.
I guess I should probably end this on some kind of positive note, and talk about how using the recipes that I learned in my friends' kitchens made me feel closer to them in my isolation, or that the recipes I picked up traveling somehow helped me to relive my experiences in other countries while I was grounded...but that's bullshit. If I weren't fairly introverted by nature, I feel like there's a good chance that I would have done something irreparable a long time ago. By the time I got to Engrish's yesterday I was pretty much starved for attention - I had verbal diarrhea to go with my potty mouth, and was probably telling the most boring, inane stories of all time. Lucky for me, she'd had almost as little human contact, so either she didn't notice, or she was willing to live with it. Maybe a little of both - Engrish is a lot kinder than me.
As we moved into the valley, we both noticed a distinct lack of benches. There also wasn't much shade. It wasn't too hot, though, and while the trail wasn't flat, it wasn't too strenuous either. At least at first. And it didn't take long before we got to the main attraction...the...err......heavenly pillars.
If, a few moments ago, you thought to yourself, "Huh, she didn't explain why Engrish was so sure she'd be willing to go on this hike," well, I believe it should be obvious now. Why is Baglidere known as Love Valley? Because the fairy chimneys in this valley have been weathered into rather phallic shapes - like, shall we say, love plungers??? 
