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Update: By 8:30 am the temperature has dropped to 36º below O F. This is a drop of 15 degrees since 5:30 am, which hardly seems possible, but I have rechecked the weather reports and this seems to be the case. 36 below 0 F. is certainly cold enough to freeze twice-distilled arkhi, so it seems we are indeed experiencing  Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö. I mentioned earlier that the First of the Nine-Nines —the Nine-Nines being nine periods of nine days each, each period characterized by a certain type of winter weather—started on the day of the Winter Solstice , which occurred here in Mongolia on December 22. The Second of the Nine Nines begins today, December 31. Known as Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö, this is the time when twice-distilled homemade Mongolian arkhi (vodka) freezes. As you will recall, the first of the Nine-Nines was the time when regular, or once distilled, arkhi freezes. As this indicates, the second period should be colder than the first, since twice distilled arkhi obviously has a much

E. Gene Smith , world-famous collector of Tibetan texts and founder of the Manhattan-based Tibetan Resource Center , has transmigrated. I had been in contact with Mr. Smith several times over the years, most recently in connection with an Unusual Kalachakra Tantra Text I had stumbled across. He came to Ulaan Baatar occasionally and I was a bit surprised when he said he wanted to meet me, since I am really not that involved with the world of Tibetan Buddhism. He had seen my book about Zanabazar, the First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia, however, and he was keen to talk about Zanabazar. We finally met for lunch at the Delhi Darbar Restaurant in the  Puma Imperial Hotel where he was staying. Although it was just he and I for lunch we ended up talking for four hours. Amazingly, he had actually met the Diluv Khutagt . It is not quite clear who, if anyone, will step into the seven-league boots of Mr. Smith. He might well have been sui generis  in the field of Tibetan studies.  E. Gene Smith (1

Wandered up to the summit of Zaisan Tolgoi (Noblemen’s Hill) to watch the Moon rise in eclipse on the evening of the 21st. It was minus 8º F when I reached the top. Not surprisingly I was the only person there.   The Summit of Zaisan Tolgoi The War Memorial at the top of Zaisan Tolgoi The total phase of the eclipse ended at 4:53 pm, just four minutes before the official moon rise time of 4:57. When the moon finally  did  clear the mountains to the east at about 5:15 it was of normal color and roughly 50% occluded; in other words it resembled a regular half-moon. By 6:05 the shadow on the moon had disappeared completely and it looked like a regular Full Moon. As you know, each Full Moon has a name associated with it. See  North American Names for the Full Moons . The last Full Moon before the Winter Solstice, is known as the Cold Moon, Frost Moon, or Long Nights Moon in English. This is the Full Moon that occurred yesterday. I don’t know if Mongolians have a name for this moon. Maybe

The Winter Solstice occurs here in Ulaan Baatar at 7:38 AM on the morning of December 22 (a lso see the  2009 Winter Solstice  and   2008 Winter Solstice ) .  December 22 will of course be the shortest day of the year: here in Ulaan Baatar the sun will rise at 8:39 am and set at 5:02 pm for a day of 8 hours, 22 minutes, and 53 seconds. That’s two seconds less the day before and four seconds less than the day after, December 23.  The Winter Solstice occurs 6:38 PM on the evening of December 21 in the Eastern United States, on the same day as the Total Lunar Eclipse , which is extremely unusual: This eclipse is notable because it takes place just hours before the December solstice, which marks the beginning of northern winter and southern summer. The last Dec. 21 total lunar eclipse occurred in the year 1638. (Number-crunchers quibbled for a while over whether that one counted as a solstice eclipse, due to shifts between the Julian and Gregorian calendar, but the current consensus i

Unless you have spent the last couple of months indulging in some totally heedless Bacchanalia in a basement bar in Greenwich Village you no doubt know that there is a  Total Lunar Eclipse  scheduled for December 21, 2010. In the Western Hemisphere the eclipse will fall on the same day as the Winter Solstice; here in Mongolia it will occur the day before.  Phases of the Eclipse, with Total in the Middle. For a more detailed view see Lunar Eclipse Phases .  Some of the best views of the Lunar Eclipse will be from the east coast of the United States. In Mongolia the situation is complicated to say the least. Here is the schedule (all local Ulaanbaatar times):  Penumbral begins:  1:29 pm Partial eclipse begins:  2:33 pm Total eclipse begins:  3:41 pm Full Moon at 4:13 Greatest eclipse:  4:17 pm Total Eclipse ends: 4:53 pm Moon Rises at 4:57 Sun Sets at 5:01 Partial eclipse ends: 6:01 pm Penumbral ends: 7:05  pm As can be seen from this the eclipse begins and the period of total eclipse

The second day we continued south through the Tsenkher Gov. There was no wind at all and quite warm. Indeed in the afternoon it got downright hot and soon even the flies came out and started bothering our camels. This was not at all what I was expecting. During Previous Camel Trips in the Gobi during the first two weeks of October I had experienced numerous days of frigid temperatures and ferocious winds. Now I began to worry that our goat meat might spoil in the heat. Brother Duit and Sukhee allowed that it had been an unusually warm autumn so far. Whether it had anything to do with Global Warming they did not know.  Continuing across the Tsenkher Gov At 6:30 in the evening we camped for the night, having covered 36.2 kilometers (22.5 miles) that day. The sky was clear when I turned in, but at about two in the morning I woke up and noticed that it had clouded over completely and not a single star was visible. Also the temperature was falling and the wind was rising. When I got up