Tsagaan Sar

This Wednesday was Mongolian Lunar New Year - Tsagaan Sar, which literally means White Moon. It's different to the Chinese Lunar New Year as it is celebrated two months after the first full moon following the winter solstice.

Both Wednesday and Thursday were official public holidays, and today (Friday) became another as the Government changed the official working day to last Saturday. My workplace told me that I didn't have to work Tuesday, as was the case for all the women in the office, apparently because we had a great deal of cooking and cleaning to do before the Lunar New Year celebrations. I then found out that the Director had given women permission to take the Saturday, and also the Monday off also. So I've ended up having a week of holidays.

The event is celebrated at home and usually involves just close family members. This has meant that the streets of UB have been very quiet the past couple of days. Moreover, the sun has been shining and to my amazement, the weather has been warming up (to about -15!). I've even been waking up the sound of birds chirping outside. For me, it's hard to imagine this place not in Winter, but now there are actual signs of Spring! I'm not putting my hopes up too much though. It's supposed to remain at sub-zero temperatures until at least the start of May.

With the streets nice and quiet and the 'warmer' weather, I thought it was a good chance to get out and take some pictures of the streets, buildings and interesting designs of the city.

As you can see from these selected photos below, I really love the different types of patterns that can be found in the designs of window security bars, fences, planter boxes and even the footpaths.