The Coldest Capital City in the World | First Impressions of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 🇲🇳| Part 1

[Music] good morning from anulan Batar the capital of Mongolia we got here last night and we are about to explore the city for the first time today anen Batar has the distinction of being the world's coldest capital city with average temperatures dropping to -22° F in January it's not quite negative 22° f right now but it's still very chilly so we're definitely going to have to wear all of our layers when we go out today however we came prepared we packed thermal underwear thermal shirts you know a scarf my ski jacket these special Line Pants got some face masks socks you know hats gloves apologies to anyone expecting an airline video but it's not every day that you end up in the world's coldest Capital City during the coldest month of the year so we thought it'd be fun to take you guys along with us as we explore the city [Music] today [Music] all right so we're out now it's cold but it's not as cold as we thought so I'm not wearing all my gear cuz I felt kind of dumb wearing it all but we'll see how it how things pan out later we set out without any real agenda other than to get a feel for the city so we pinned a few sites on the map and got on our way all right so we're at stop number one right now which is the National Theater which is right back there and then we have the national library right back there known officially as the Mongolian State academic drama theater it was completed in 1931 and it's one of several theaters scattered across the city the National Library of Mongolia is the country's largest library and was built in 1921 and used to have a statue of Stalin out [Music] front now we're making our way to Suk vitar Square which is the Central Square in ul vatar and was named after a famous revolutionary you see a lot of pictures of it and there's a pretty famous statue so let's go take a look during the winter ice sculpture exhibitions along with skating rinks and some ice slides are set up in a lot of the public squares in anen [Music] Batar they even set up an ice maze having fun not every day you see an ice [Music] maze that's uh damned in suar who this squir is named after you can see they're taking down the Christmas decorations over there if we turn over this way that is the man himself Changas Khan suar Square plays host to a lot of important Gatherings for many Mongolians and this government building to the north is the office of the national Parliament the president and the Prime Minister the chenhan statue stands in the center of the building and statues of KublaCon and oikon can be seen off to the [Music] side you like suar Square how you dealing with the weather is too cold for you it's okay it's making my makeup run everywhere but that's my own fault I like a lot I just want to go down the the I slid it's a lot fun see if we can make that happen probably not [Music] yeah right there's the Changas Khan National Museum I don't know if we're going to go in right now um but I think it's something we'll do later maybe get out of the cold if we need [Music] to so we're taking about a 25 minute walk to a monastery hopefully neither of us will fall in our butts as it's very icy and slippy Crossing every road is a massive risk to be honest but we're on our way we saw a cool kind of Monument here and then there's another cool Square over there so we're going to go check it [Music] out we're here right in front of the Natural History Museum got more of these like really cool ice sculptures and they haven't taken down the Christmas tree [Music] yet these slides look like a lot of fun my wife wants me to go down one but I think I've had a bit too much Taco Bell in 2023 for that the monastery we're heading to has a really long name that I can't pronounce but it's known as gonden [Music] Monastery so we've made it to the monastery looks pretty cool so we're going to have a look around now gundan Monastery is a Buddhist Monastery that was founded in 1809 and then closed in 1939 due to religious persecutions within Mongolia it was later reopened in 1944 and was mongolia's only active Monastery until 1989 when the country moved away from from communism today it's the center of Buddhism in Mongolia and has more than 100 resident monks all right so we finished up the monastery and the Adventure Continues our winter gear is holding up we're not too cold lots of dogs around here what you can really feel is the pollution Mongolia has a huge problem with pollution during the winter especially in ul and Batar I think it's the most polluted Capal on Earth yeah they burn a lot of coal and right now they're blasting the Heat and everything cuz it's so cold and you can really feel it it's really just hitting me in the chest right now undeterred by the pollution in the cold we made our way back to the city center where we found a local convenience store my wife needed some toiletries but I decided to get an ice cream [Music] not really sure what kind of ice cream it is but the packaging looked pretty cool so let's try it out can we get a closeup what is this what the that looks like a hagget yeah apparently Turtles like it yeah all right so apparently I need scissors cut off the end and squeeze it into my mouth I'm not really craving an ice cream right now we don't have scissors so we're just going to try and like rip this thing off and try it that way right so we managed to get this thing open a little bit of persistence so I'm going to try it out now that looks delightful how does it taste just like soft serve uh chocolate ice cream oh yeah pretty good um in I wish it did not come like this though and you know what it's an experience yeah when inar onear can we see can you show how it comes out okay there we go wow enjoy that once I finished my ice cream we decided to check out the mall which is next door to see if we could get some [Music] supplies we couldn't find anything that we needed but it was still interesting to see what the local stores are [Music] like it's about 2:30 in the afternoon so we're going to try and get some lunch I'm not really hungry after my my ice cream but my wife needs to eat so off we go we've arrived my wife's a vegan so we're going to go to this weekend restaurant wasn't really space to sit down there it was a bit packed and um there was no menu and no one spoke English so was a little bit of a struggle but I bought something mystery wrap I think it might be a kimab like a rice weed roll thing so we'll soon find out so funny story about the Loving Hut it's a it's a chain restaurant and uh all over the world they're all vegan yeah and there are those who would say that it is a cult if you look it up online say that but I mean legally I don't want to get sued or anything but there are those there's some videos that play that are a little unusual so I think this is yeah a rice roll I'm not sure if you're supposed to eat this like this but I guess this is what I'm going to do I don't have any color or anything so we'll see good it has some like purple rice and some fake meat in it mock meat not bad I don't know if you can see it but this roll is room temperature and it's actually steam coming off of it cuz I guess it's so cold out the next stop on our walk was the Mongolian State Department Store completed in 1921 this department store used to be run by the government and still retains its blocky Soviet Style this mall is now owned by namin holding which has been described as the Walmart of Mongolia in total there's seven floors and you can find pretty much anything you want many tourists come to Mongolia to experience the countryside so we weren't surprised to see a lot of the western outdoor Brands here Mongolia is famous for its cashmere and I wanted to get a sweater but everything was pretty pricey here [Music] in the end I wasn't able to get any souvenirs but my wife was able to pick up some nice hand cream it's 3:00 yep finished up at the mall We've Ended up in this little square yeah it's really nice I think I believe this is oh it's the Prime Minister Street this long walkway down here that goes from the mall I think to some city hall building or something so yeah it's nice there's a few street food stalls and lots of people walking around broken it's made in France yeah the capital of pizza gets dark around 5:30 here so have to try and figure out something to do K sometime I think we're going to see a show tonight yeah there's a traditional folk show um in the park behind our hotar they do some traditional dancing and music and stuff so think going to try and check that out in a couple of [Music] hours going to try and use this ATM and get some of the local currency right let's see what molan currency looks like we got a whole stack of it here so I took out about $40 got this huge stack of cash looks pretty cool all right so we've decided to just head back to the hotel just rest up and get warm for a little bit before we go to the show maybe breathe some cleaner air as coughing a lot bring that we spent about 2 hours back in the hotel and to be honest we didn't want to leave but we both really wanted to see some traditional Mongolians singing and dancing so we forced ourselves to head back out so it's a couple hours later you can see it's dark now and it's a a bit colder than it was before and now we're running to catch the ship joke absolutely WR way we'll we'll see what happens we chose this show because Google said it was taking place in the Park right next to our hotel but it proved a little difficult to find and later we would learn that it didn't take place during the winter so we we couldn't find it or maybe it's just not open or something so no show tonight so I guess that'll wrap it up for this Vlog we didn't get to see all you wanted to see in Umar so maybe we'll you know add some stuff tomorrow or the next day so yeah tomorrow we're going to go see the Ching of Cs that and U going see a national park as well so should be fun all right so that'll do it take care goodbye from an butar originally I was planning on making just a single video about one day in UL Batar but we found that there was a lot more to see so there will be two more videos coming out on what it's like to travel around Mongol during the winter definitely a lot different than what I usually post but it was a lot of fun and I hope you'll tune in who said UL matar isn't Fun during the winter

Channel: NYC Flyer

Views: 7,544

Keywords: travel, Vlog, Mongolia, ulaanbaatar, winter, January, MIAT, Kara and Nate, North Face, Parliament Building, Chinggis Khan, Sukhbaatar Square, State Department Store, Gandan Monastery, National Museum of Mongolia, food, Opera and Ballet, Naadam, Bars, National Park of Mongolia, National Culture and Recreation Center, Bogd Khaan Palace Museum, travel guide

Id: FspoJ9yT0hU

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024