Surreal.

Please listen to this song as you read further:

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I have become an avid runner since coming here.  On any day that I'm out of teaching class early enough to get in a good hour of meandering through the aimag's lesser-traveled back roads and horse paths, I do so.  This evening, I went farther than ever before on what is perhaps my favorite trail.  Though I have run with other volunteers, today I was alone.  There are few trees in Choibalsan, but some outlying regions are fairly forested due to planting projects that the Soviets undertook decades ago.  Running East-West clear across the Southern end of the town is the most convincing of these mock-woods.  The trees there have grown tall enough that falcons and eagles use them as hunting perches from whence they can peer across the massive steppe that extends beyond the city limits in all directions.  I jogged Westwards along these paths until I came to a fairly large and shallow pool, at the center of which sits a giant stone Buddha.  I love to run around this pond, as I can see out over the massive Ger District which lies strewn to the North and West.  The inhabitants of these areas tend to burn trash in large pyres, both for warmth and just to get rid of it.  They were doing so in full flaming force this evening.  The smoke filtering across the little lake makes for some spectacularly streaked sunsets, if you catch them at just the right time.  After enjoying such a sight, I was jogging back home when a capricious urge overtook me.  I cut through the trees to the south, and ran up an embankment that I had not previously noticed.  This was quite a find, as the majority of the terrain here is about as flat as moonscape. Just as I scaled its 10 meter (towering, in my mind) summit, my ipod hit the crescendo of strings that occurs at about 1:32 in "The Kiss" from "Last of the Mohicans."  My running playlist here is embarrassingly full of such grandiose music.  At that very moment, three horsemen in full dels and felt caps (traditional Mongolian riding attire) burst out of the trees, singing a song in unison. Their entrance on the scene must startled two very large birds of prey, who tore out of the trees and the crimson sky from the Northwest and strafed directly above me, hurtling towards the Southeast.  As I turned to follow their flight, I saw that they had disappeared into the largest and most luminous harvest moon I have ever witnessed. The three mounted Mongols streaked past me to the South.  Just as this magical minute passed, so did the song end.

I stand fully ready and willing to admit that one of the reasons I came out here was to fill my days with moments that make me wonder whether my life is directed by Sergio Leone or Peter Jackson.  Somehow the coincidences and happenstances of existence here are so obliquely arrayed that they align into cinematic moments that occur with such frequency that I am tempted to abruptly stop and demand that the hidden cameramen show themselves.  On each of these surreal occasions, I find myself awash in wonder, admiration, and of course, contentment.

That's how I'm feeling right now.  I'm still sitting in my sweats, having immediately torn out my laptop to type this.