Beer and code

Select a photo to display

Keyboard instructions

• Navigate with: LEFT + RIGHT arrows
• Select with: ENTER
• Enlarge with: TAB then ENTER
• Pan with: TAB x2 then LEFT + RIGHT arrows

An uninspiring view.

A more inspiring view.

An expensive home away from home.

I awake to falling rain and a desire to avoid yesterday’s hostel humdrum.

Packing up my work gear, I walk down our alleyway, the other way from usual.

This leads to a red-light district of sorts; a less glamorous, more utilitarian side of town, where small and medium sized shops huddle beneath jaded high-rise habitats. Although I admit that better weather might have painted things in a more favourable light.

But then an Erdinger flag catches my eye. The empty Erdinger promises in Siberia have made me skeptical, but it turns out that my favourite beer is actually on tap! For some reason, they have an Oktoberfest deal, which I don’t hesitate to order. It does seem a little weird to celebrate a German festival in Mongolia of all places, but it is definitely October, so who am I to complain?

The empty restaurant is a change from my empty bedroom and soon the uninspiring outlook is replaced by a steaming hot cheese & salami pizza and a delicious bottle of imported weissbier.

Over the course of the Erdinger range, I manage to knock out a healthy chunk of JavaScript, while nodding my head to global hip-hop and R’n’B, less out of place here than the beer.

The proprietor sees that life is good and decides that I must be a digital nomad, living the digital dream. In spite of my insistence that I am only here for a few weeks, she hands me the name and number of a real estate agent – representing a luxury gated complex. She’s got her audience completely wrong, yet here I am.