Travel to Mongolia -2- The city similarities

4 min readSep 16, 2022

It takes about 2 hours by car from Chinggis Khaan International Airport, which has just been renewed in 2021, to Ulaanbaatar city. From the car, I could see the ger occasionally. Oh the first real gel!! Just cheer for it.
I have read travel guides of course. But to be honest, I have almost no real image of Mongolia. I only know about “The White Horse of Suho” which is a so famous story in Japan and is a story about the origin of the horse head harp. But it is almost unknown in Mongolia. There must be a big difference between “my image of Mongolia” and “real Mongolia”.
I remembered Mongolia that I saw from the plane. During descent from the sky, this country was completely different from the countries I had visited so far. The Endlessly brown plateau, with mountains towering in the distance. It was neither a fantasy novel nor a movie set.
While fiddling with my smartphone to connect to Wi-Fi, the car approached the city. We could see the signboard. But I couldn’t understand the characters at all. Cyrillic letters that I have no idea how to read. Originally Mongolian was written vertically, but horizontal writing was introduced because it was inconvenient when learning mathematics. Cyrillic letter. Same letter as Russia. However, even if they both know that it’s written in Cyrillic, they don’t seem to know what they’re writing. Of course, I don’t understand Russian at all, let alone Mongolian.

As I gazed at the cityscape, I lost confidence in where I was. Even though I’ve just arrived in Mongolia, I feel like I’m driving on the highway back to Tokyo. No, maybe it’s early in the morning in Dubai and I’m on my way to the airport now. No way, this is London on the way to the airport, right?
Cities that float in darkness, and the roads that connect the airport to the city, may all come to resemble each other. It’s like when you go to a provincial city in Japan and see a station building and townscape similar to Tokyo. No matter where you live, what you need will be similar to some extent if you add convenience.
Or maybe there is an international organization that says, “Let us handle the road and city planning to the airport!” Men in black suits and black shoes. Cut out the city at night with big scissors like a sheet of paper. Lights and windows are skillfully cut out, and the city is expanded little by little. Their favorite cutouts are limited to a few buildings, so they’re all similar cities.
While imagining that, we were dropped off at the hotel.

https://youtu.be/7R_5n5LHPJ8

Although I heard that it was a single room, it was a twin room. wide. I can stretch. dance can be checked. A suitcase is unfolded. It reminded me of a room I stayed in before that didn’t even have space to open a suitcase. Come to think of it, the hotel near Gare du Nord in Paris didn’t even have a place to put my luggage, let alone unfold your suitcase. Half of the single bed was lined with things, and when I slept, I lay down on the little space. I fell asleep fantasizing about becoming a struggling Impressionist painter. But this room is big. Is there enough land itself, or is there a lot of surplus space in the city? I thought this alone would make me fall in love with Mongolia. 1 hour time difference from Japan. I have no trouble sleeping. Perfect isn’t it?

The next day, we left for the rehearsal of the “Japan Festival in Mongolia 2022”, a project commemorating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Mongolia. Seeing Ulaanbaatar in the daylight was completely a city, unlike the world of gers and camels that people imagine when they hear the word “Mongolia.” There’s the Shangri-La Hotel, and the girls walking around are fashionable. At the same time, I felt a slight sense of disappointment about “city,” and a strong sense of relief about “city.” There must be no shortage of equipment.
Rather, the venue we arrived at, the WHITE ROCK CENTER inside the NATIONAL AMUSMENT PARK, was a much more wonderful stage than I had imagined.
I will sing here for two days, August 20th and 21st.