Finally, the last of the Mongolia trip! We ventured into the north where all the thermals I packed finally came in handy. This part of the country, we discovered, is home to large hungry predatory birds and delightfully shaggy yaks. At one of our ger camps a trio of intrepid yaklings (or whatever baby yaks are called) crept into our ger where The Bob was napping and made off with our welcome mat. I was outside watching a goat being slaughtered for our dinner when I looked up and noticed a fuzzy backside sticking out of the door (the yak's, not The Bob's). Without thinking, I blurted out, "Hey! There's a yak in my ger!" and then enjoyed the fact that it was perhaps the quintessentially Mongolian statement.
This was also the area where I got to go horse riding, feeling like an ogre perched atop the small but sturdy Mongolian horses. My first horse was an enthusiastic fellow I named Peanut Brownie and the second was a rather lazier steed whom I named Garth on account of his mullet mane.
We saw waterfalls, volcanoes, ancient deer stones, enormous bugs and impressive monasteries. We even stopped in at the Mongolian hot pools and although it wasn't quite the Waiwera I had imagined, it was still relaxing to sit in the two knee-deep pools.
Our trip finished up with a couple of days back in the city where we had the misfortune to be staying in the same hotel and were once again plagued with queries from the front desk as to when we would "closet". The strangest experience involved a small Russian child using his room key to accidentally unlock our door at 11pm - apparently one key could open more than one door. We wedged a chair under the handle and didn't sleep very well that night. A short trip to Seoul ended our holiday and we returned to NZ where for a week afterward I would wake up in the night and not remember if I was in my room or a ger. I miss Mongolia.
It's an early effort but one of my favourites - the old keytar cake. It was huge and had to be cut into several pieces to be moved. I used the roasting dish to make the cake and trimmed part off to make the...neck? That bit that sticks out.
What do you make for a friend with a Top Gun fetish? Well obviously a cake with their face on it, wearing aviators and a mustache. Duh. I had another friend turn the photo into a stencil and cut the shapes out of black fondant and put them all back together on the cake. It even looks like him.
That's right! It's a baby bag made of cake! There are surprisingly few ideas floating around for baby shower cakes but I managed to find something similar to this on the net to copy. It involved three layers - two chocolate and one coconut - and went down pretty well although one person (who wasn't involved in the baby shower) saw a picture and said she wasn't sure she would be able to eat something that looked like nappies, even if they were made of icing. For the record, they tasted great.
