Just a quick post from the in-laws for now, but last night Ira and I went out to the Queen’s Birthday Party, organised by the British (! (/sarcasm)) Embassy, then went on to the BG Challenge Ball (see last year’s post - if I don’t get around to linking to it properly, it should hopefully [...]

OK, so I definitely need to clear some time in the next week or two, and try to catch up with a lot of posts (and photo editing) on this blog. Although my memory of my holiday last September may be a little hazy by now, I’m hoping the pictures will either refresh said memory, [...]

OK, their pizzas were so delicious, we gave them three tries, but sadly, problems persisted.
Positive points? They deliver, which is quite unusual here in Astana. The pizzas are delicious
Negative points? The soft drinks have a markup of 400%! You either need an iron stomach, or some Imodium handy later that evening/the next day Like [...]

Irina found a pizza place that delivered, so we treated ourselves to a film and pizza last night. A little pricey (1 litre of coke/fanta cost 800 tenge (about quadruple the cost in a shop), pizzas were 1600-1950 tenge (around 7 pounds/$15) each), but mine was tasty. Without going into gory details, if you happen [...]

Quick explanation for those of you who thought I had given up on posting here, or had no internet access - I am currently still deep in the process of setting up my other 18 sites. They were originally created as static (well almost, too long a story to recount here) pages, and whenever I [...]

Today is my wife’s birthday. She is at work right now, but we are planning to finally visit a restaurant with some friends tonight (we have talked about checking it out since Tom was last here, but not got around to it), another meal with her work friends and colleagues tomorrow, and then finally some [...]

To celebrate Dr Natalya’s birthday, we went to the ‘barrel’ restaurant yesterday. I have forgotten the official name of the place, but due to the use of huge barrels outside as dining areas (at least in the summer months), that barrel place is easier to remember
As well as Dr Natalya, her husband Sasha (when [...]

Ira got home from work a little tired, and asked me to cook tea. Normally I am happy to oblige, as it often means I get to eat the sort of thing Irina does not like as much; however today I too am feeling a little knackered. Solution? Order some food from a cafe that [...]

Although I’m obviously hyped up over going back to Amsterdam and Britain next Friday, my mind can not help dwelling on just how much I am going to miss some things over here in Kazakhstan
Obviously my wife, Ira, comes first. I will be away for just under a month, which will be the longest we [...]

Earlier this year, someone contacted me, having read 2006’s posts on the fun and frollocks involved when we sorted out my resident’s permit. Although he (Dan) had been visiting Kazakhstan (Shymkent specifically) since the early 90s, he was actually moving over here with Kazakh wife (sound familiar ), and wanted to check if there [...]

Last night we went to the ‘English Pub’ Chelsea, to celebrate Walton’s birthday last Sunday. It was relatively quiet, and not much had really changed in there. The prices are definitely set at foreigners and ex-pats prices, but they do good (cheese) burgers, the service is friendly, and the birthday boy wanted a nice burger, [...]

As I mentioned in the previous post, we (Ira, Me, Balzhan, Ildar, Masha, Dr. Natalya, Sasha & Sveta) went out to celebrate Dr. Natalya & Sasha’s new car. In the same way as you ‘wet’ a baby’s head, major accomplishments are celebrated with a drink over here; if you have something to drink, you should [...]

This evening we went with Assel and Walton to the roof terrace section of the Sattay restaurant. Although you do pay a little more than some places, it wasn’t quite in the range of the German style restaurant we went to mid-week, luckily. I had some Bousaky as a starter (a roll that tastes [...]

OK, not quite, but the name of the place we went to last night is not a million miles from my surname…

?????????? which (very) roughly equates to Meramhana, which is pretty damn close to Merriman Anyway, we met up with Walton and Assel, who we had not seen since he went away to Kyrgyzstan [...]

We went out for a nice meal this evening. We took a stroll through the park, over the river Ishim, and then through to the area near the main square. Ali BaBa is an out door restaurant, with cover from any rain or wind that is blighting the evening. Tonight’s service was pretty excellent - [...]

Last night Ira and I went out to celebrate our six year anniversary. There is a Japanese restaurant down by where Irina works, and as Ira loves sushi, we decided to go back there again. She had lots of different rolls of raw fish (yum yum…), and I went for a spaghetti bolognese. The pasta [...]

Right, I think I now have all the text deciphered This is the last of the posts on the charity event organized by BG (British Gas) Kazakhstan to raise funds for the Kazakh Paralympic team and their trip to the Paralympics next year at Beijing, China.
Throughout the evening, there were draws for the raffle, [...]

So, as promised, here are further details of the rest of Wednesday’s charity event to raise funds for the Kazakh Paralympics team, organized by BG Kazakhstan…
Mira volunteered for a dance competition, where random pairs coupled up to dance to some music. Nothing too unusual so far, however every minute or so, the track was changed [...]

Rather than relying on my alcohol fuzzed mind to recall the events of the evening, I actually made notes on my phone as the evening carried on, so I am hoping most of this is relatively accurate.
As I previously mentioned, we arrived and found ourselves a table. After quite a long wait, we eventually managed [...]

Though I think I should check how to spell her name tomorrow - Ira (or Mira) if you read this before I speak to you next, feel free to leave a comment laughing at my attempt to spell the name Anyway, for those who don’t know, she works with Ira over at KazMunaiGaz, and [...]