Jun 18 2009

Air, Teeth, Mud, Concrete and Burgers

Category: Eating Out,In The Media,Kazakh Driving,PersonalChrisM @ 8:56 pm

This evening, so Anna could have some fresh air (and a snooze, as she had been cranky all day – teething?) we walked over to Mega (see previous tweet with picture). On the way there (we still take an extra few minutes to use the proper light controlled pedestrian crossing, compared to the main cross roads next to Mega, where cars don’t have to stop when turning right, even though the little green man is, well, green, for pedestrians) we cut across a little patch of grass to get to the pavement. It had previously been raining, and I suddenly found it very difficult to push Anna along. Looking down, I saw the wheel and lower part of the frame caked in mud. Lesson learned – stick to the concrete where possible. It looks like we may be needing some pressure washers to clear the mud off the frame for the pushchair. Hopefully the Akim here in Astana will consider building a proper pavement (sidewalk for American readers), as the one on our side of the road is actually just a series of (usually) connected concrete covers over large pipes.
Speaking of construction in Astana, NewEurasia.net has an article explaining how Kazakhstan hosting the Asian Winter Olympics has benefited Astana now that the city is co-hosting with Almaty (the old capital city over here). See here for the full run down.
Anyway, despite the use of big puddles, leaves and tissues, the pushchair was still leaving a muddy streak behind it when we arrived at Mega, so Ira ran in to pick up a few essentials from Ramstore, and also a couple of takeaways from Star Burger (I think that was the name) – I had a relatively tasty cheese burger, with no scary rabbit food (lettuce, tomato, gherkins etc), which filled a hole nicely.
On the way back a water tanker (one of the smaller versions, compared to what you might see in Europe) was drifting across lanes, apparently trying to drive through a car, rather than overtake it, luckily they both stopped in time for the zebra crossing, so we arrived back home in one piece, though a little wet, as the clouds broke again for a few minutes.

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2 Responses to “Air, Teeth, Mud, Concrete and Burgers”

  1. WLB says:

    I was actually going to give you a ring yesterday afternoon and see if you wanted to go for a walk but then it started to rain, so I thought you wouldn’t want to take Anna out. Oh well. Some other time

  2. ChrisM says:

    We didn’t actually set out whilst it was raining, we waited for a lull in the deluge, then popped out. I took cover with Anna under the exterior roof area at Mega when it started again, it had finished when Ira came out with the shopping, and then really poured once more on the way back. Thanks for the thought, and hopefully see you both soon.