So, winter has very much arrived here in Ulaanbaatar, and the temperature has plummeted all the way down to the icy depths of -30 degrees Celsius. Yep, it really is that cold. Before moving here I always assumed that those sorts of temperatures only occur at the poles, but here we are in a city of 1.5 million people, all freezing our balls off (well, 750,000 of us are, if you think about it).
For months my girlfriend has been telling me to buy a good winter coat in preparation for the winter, but I kept putting it off and putting it off until finally, last week, I could go on no longer. I trudged to the local outdoor equipment store and picked up a new jacket based on this Patagonia Nano Puff review. The review made the jacket sound great: lightweight, comfortable and warm. I was sold.
Unfortunately the review on Parka Review was later amended to include the warning that the jacket really isn’t designed for weather below around -20 Celsius. Now this is a problem for me, as the temperature only climbs above -20 for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, and after that it plunges almost 20 degrees until the following noon.
Anyway, this is the jacket I bought:
With a little luck it’ll be enough, paired with a thick sweater, to ward off the worst of the cold until we can leave this place for Thailand in a few weeks.
