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The Summer Solstice , marking the longest day of the year, occurred here at 7:09 a.m. on Wednesday, June 21. For many years I have gone to the Summit of Bogd Khan Uul , one of the Four Sacred Mountains surrounding Ulaanbaatar, to celebrate the Summer Solstice. This year I decided to observe the Solstice by visiting Erdene Uul (mountain) in Töv Aimag, 92 miles east of Ulaanbaatar as the crow flies. Erdene Uul, overlooking the valley of the Kherlen River, is also known as Burkhan Khaldun. It is one of three Burkhan Khalduns identified by researchers D. Bazargür and D. Enkhbayar: Erdene Uul, the Burkhan Khaldun of the Uriangkhai; Khentii Khan Uul, the Burkhan Khaldun of the Khamag Mongols ; and Asralt Khairkhan ,   the Burkhan Khaldun of the Keraits. Khentii Khan Uul is of course the most  famous of the Burkhan Khalduns; this is the one where most people go on pilgrimages and to where the President of Mongolia is required to go once every four years.  Erdene Uul, howev...

I awoke at my regular time and after the usual orisons settled into the southeast nook of my Studiolum for morning tea. Just the day before I had received a shipment of this Spring’s harvest of Imperial Mojiang Golden Bud Yunnan Black Tea and was looking forward to trying it again. All went well as I sipped the first two bowls. The tea was fresh and young, all knees and elbows, sassy without being impertinent. Notes of chocolate, tobacco, malt, and, if I am not mistaken, a hint of pachouli flared up and then drifted away. During my third bowl, however, my tea drinking revelry was interrupted by a somber note of unease which had insidiously crept into my mind stream. By the time I finished the bowl I was overtaken by a fissiparous existential crisis which finally congealed into one simple question: “What the heck am I doing here?” Why was I sitting on this carpet, in this apartment in Zaisan Tolgoi, a suburb of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia? What concatenation of circumstances ha...