Happy New Year 2016

Here's wishing everyone a happy, prosperous, healthy new year!

The Ice Palace

Christmas Doings at School

We had a charity event at the Radisson, Christmas concert, Christmas party for teachers, Secret Santa and Christmas party for kids. This week. Whew! I'm glad it's Saturday. Two more school days til vacation!

Some of my students singing at the charity bazaar

Some of the thousands of people at the bazaar

QSI's table of student art work for sale

Our wonderful Dasha

Ten year olds singing at the Christmas concert at school

A gift my Secret Santa gave me

 

Lovely Evening, Gorgeous Day

I may be repeating myself, but Astana at night is beautiful.  The buildings are lit up, with a variety of displays. Now that Christmas is coming, there are more lights.

The Wavy Towers change color

The Pope Hat Buildings with Christmas lights along the frozen river

Entrance to the park

Lighted arch along the river. More are going up

Ded Moroz

Today, December 1 is First President of Kazakhstan Day. We had the day off school. It was a gorgeous day. Another thing about Astana is that it is usually clear. It hasn't been very cold except for the three day long cold snap. The air feels crisp and clean. The park was filled with people cross country skiing, sledding, and walking.

Sledding in front of the Wavy Towers

Even the kids cross country ski

People were ice fishing on the river, sledding on the river and I saw a couple of women with packages walking on the river. I saw cross country ski tracks on the river, too. I'll have to get my courage up before I walk or ski on the river.

Saturday Thanksgiving

We had to go to school on Thanksgiving, being in a different country and all.  The embassy had the day off and I was invited to share in Thanksgiving, which was really nice.  The school put on a Thanksgiving lunch that included entertainment.

The 10 year old class singing that classic Thanksgiving song, "Oh, Susannah!"

The aftermath

Some of the teachers decided to have Thanksgiving on Saturday.  Josh and Kyla bought a turkey, and Jennifer and Jason opened up their home for us. The rest of us brought potluck. We stood in a circle, held hands and Jason said grace. It was very delicious and the company was fun. After eating, we played Cards Against Humanity. There were several Eeeew moments.

Homemade rolls, homemade cranberry sauce, green bean casserole with crackers instead of french fried onions, dressing, gravy, salads and pumpkin pie.  Not necessarily all on one plate!

I always say Thanksgiving isn't important. It's a short holiday, not like Christmas. But the first year I was overseas, I cried for three weeks that Thanksgiving. This year I also felt a little down. However, being with friends, not all of whom are American, celebrating this American holiday really satisfied.

After Thanksgiving dinner Kumis.  These teachers had not tasted it before.

I wish I had taken a picture of them after they drank.

Kumis is fermented mare's milk. It smells like dirty, sweaty socks and tastes even worse. But if you're in Kazakh land, kumis you must try.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Almaty, Kazakhstan and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Waaay back in October, I took a trip with a couple other teachers to Almaty and Bishkek.  Almaty is in the south of Kazakhstan and was the capital from 17-whatever until 1998, when the capital was moved to Astana.

We decided to see the country.  It's a long way from Astana to Almaty.  So we took the overnight train. It took 21 hours. It got dark before we could see anything besides steppe.  I guess I didn't realize the steppe was so large. The train was comfortable and had a samovar heated by coal so you could have tea. Or CupONoodles.

We stayed in a studio Airbnb. It had 3 couches and a small kitchen, so we were quite comfortable.  Almaty is much more temperate than Astana.  It also has a lot of trees, which kind of bugged me. I don't know why. I thought I like trees.

We walked to the bus to take us to Shymbulak, the ski resort south of town. It is in the Zailisky Alatau mountain range, which is part of the Tien Shan.  Shymbulak is at 7,200 feet. The bus took us to the Medeu Iceskating Arena.

View from the gondola

It was closed, of course, but still interesting to see. We hired a taxi to take us to Shymbulak. He was quite the tour guide. He stopped along the way to show us a hot spring, pointed out sights to us in Russian. I don't know about my companions, but I made up what he said, since I don't speak Russian. He took us a bit past the ski resort for these sights, then turned around.

Water freezing as it sprayed out of a pipe.

He encouraged me to pose on a tree stump.  I laughed, but did it.

 

 

Looking up to the mountains, dreaming of alpine skiing

We saw horses on the road. Funny. Then the resort. Oh, joy! I was so excited. It was 10degrees C and not much snow, but I have a good imagination.

Picture me skiing down from the top of the ridge.  And not falling. Or breaking anything.

Beautiful outdoor restaurant seating

One of my students and her family.  So surprised to see her there!

We took the gondola down. The 4.5 km trip took about 25 minutes. Later we went to the WWI and WWII monument, the cathedral in the park in the center of town, and the mosque, because we're equal opportunity tourists.

This wooden structure was built in czarist times and is one of the few buildings to survive an earthquake in the early 20th century.

This is a truly huge monument.

The cathedral is directly behind this monument.

 Next stop Bishkek.  We took a taxi.  It's only about 3 hours by car from Almaty. We walked across the border, were checked in Kazakhstan and again in Kyrgyzstan. I was quite nervous crossing the border, but there were no problems. Bishkek is an old Soviet city. I was hoping to see some faded glory, but all I saw was decrepitude and decay. The museum was nice, though. I met a young man named Shangan Batyr, who is a first year college student. He is taking economics because he hopes to improve conditions in Kyrgyzstan. He said his heart was like Manas for Kyrgyzstan. Also he claimed Kyrgyz sheep bishbamek is much better than Kazakh horse bishbamek.  hmmmm 
Once we left the museum, we saw a metal pointing arm.  Is that Lenin?  Why, yes, yes it is. His statue in the front of the museum was replaced with a Kyrgyz hero, Manas and he was relegated to the back of the museum, out of the way, where tourists would have to hunt him down.

Manas on his magic horse

Lenin remains, but not well taken care of. Tiles were missing and discolored on his base

 The changing of the guard ceremony at the museum. I didn't understand why they needed a guard at the museum. It was quite formal, but there was only a few of us there to watch, so I suppose it is not just for tourists.

We stopped at the Osh Bazaar.  It was quite big and if I lived in Bishkek, I would go there for fresh fruits, veggies, tea and spices.

This group of men at the entrance to the bazaar were gambling. I guess you gotta do something while the wife shops for baby clothes, eh?

A couple of Communist Youth and their pet squid?

Beautiful view of the mountains outside Bishkek from the public walkway

"The more cops, the less order."  I have no idea if this is recent.

Next time I go to Bishkek, I would like to spend a little more time and go outside the city to the mountains, Alatau Park and Lake Issukul.  After two days, we headed back to Almaty, where we viewed the Golden Man monument, the museum, which was almost exactly like the museum in Bishkek. The border of Kazakhstan used to be much farther south, so these two countries have similar cultures, though the histories have a distinctness.

I bought this because it has pretty colors. It's a cushion cover, though it turns out my cushions are too big for it.  It's still pretty.

We took the fast overnight train to Astana. It took only 12 hours and was very posh. In all it was a fun vacation.