It took a while (see here for previous mentions of them), but I can finally present a few photos taken of the Buddy Bear exhibition that was in Astana last year. DanC was back in town at the time, and so most of us managed to meet up near Baiterek and have a look around. It was a good afternoon out, though I wish Anna had already become used to her sunglasses, as she seems to hate bright sun in her eyes even more than me. This meant she probably wasn’t able to get a good look at some bears.
Chris And Anna With Two Buddy Bears. One Of Whom Appears To Be 8-Bit
Walton, Chris, Anna And A Couple Of Dans
Can You Guess Which Country That Bear Is From?
Aidan
Japanese Buddy Bear
Beautiful Bear And Concept
Walton And His National Buddy
We Loved Moldova’s Bear – Up Front And Honest
For more information and photos, Kazakh Nomad’s blog entries from last year are worth checking out.
[edit]
Forgot to put the date from these photos – 15th May 2010
The 9th of May is Victory Day here in Kazakhstan, and last year (2010) Irina’s parents had family and friends over. The day is celebrated because it was on the 9th of May 1945 that Germany surrendered to the USSR (I’m pretty sure of that, though doubtless someone will be happy to correct me in the comments below 🙂 ).
This will just be a short post with one picture. I know it is not great quality, but it was the best I could do with the source material. The picture is of 3 or 4 generations sat together, with almost everyone smiling at the same time, often an issue with group photos 🙂
As promised, I’ve got around to tracking down the videos from my YouTube account (I uploaded them all months ago, but didn’t change the title or description, meaning we had such wonderfully useful info as MOV0684.MPG present) from Korean man’s birthday party last year. The date continued to be the 6th of May 2010 🙂
Irina and Anna dancing. Followed by me being told to get back to our table and stop recording everything.
Here we have Babushka and Anna (in the garden area outside the Attila restaurant) telling Dedushka to get up as she wants to walk somewhere. Korean man also makes an appearance on the right hand side of the frame. Anna then decides that Baba should in fact carry her somewhere, but seems to get a negative response. Looking at her (Anna 🙂 ) walking in this video makes me smile, as we thought at the time she was so stable and grown up already. Compared to how she is now, it just doesn’t seem possible that the changes occurred in less than a year!
Friends of the birthday boy take to the dancefloor. I’m nowhere to be found as the BPM needs to be a tad higher (as does my BAC) before I forget that rhythm and movement aren’t friendly enough to sync up with my body…
A similar video here, but given the extra oomph one person is putting into the dancing, I’m guessing this was from a little later in the evening after a couple of toasts and shots 🙂
A saxophonist appears, and I’m guessing the first tune was a local favourite, as couples descended to the dancefloor with remarkable speed! Babushka, Dedushka and Anna all dance together.
Saxophonist continues to play (slightly hidden by a pillar) and people continue to dance… You can also see Anna’s balloon which at one point escaped to the very, very high ceiling. A kind man rescued it before Anna’s face became too disappointed 🙂
A-ha, speak of the devil, and he appears in the next video, with the saxophone still playing in the background…
A local Korean cultural centre kindly attended and performed for us, and whilst their performances may not have been as mm perfect as “professional” dancers, you could see the enjoyment they experienced from dancing in the way of the old country, and everyone seemed to enjoy watching them. Hmm, apart from one person who’ll remain nameless who doesn’t seem to be too bothered.
Finally, although it is short and the light had already gone (so the video isn’t very visual…), I’m not sure if I’ve ever managed to catch this folk(?) song being sung previously, so here we have it towards the end of the night, when people had begun to filter outside for a lovely sashliq.
The 6th of May 2010 saw us attending Ira’s Dad’s friend’s (hmmm, that many apostrophes looks weird, need to double check the rules on that sometime) birthday party. I should probably point out that his nickname in Russian is in fact Korean man, it isn’t just that I’ve forgotten what his real name is.
Anyway, we were all invited to Attila (a restaurant we often end up at for celebrations), and Anna behaved very well. I think I have some videos for the event somewhere, so once I’ve scheduled this post, I’ll have a look around on my YouTube uploads.
The next day (25th April 2010) saw us still in Chubary, and spending some more time in the garden. Ira’s friends came over with their kids, and we shot some pictures and video. I’ll find the clips and put them in a post later. It looks as though Balzhan had a rake, though I’m not sure if that was for posing with in a picture, or actually to be used in the garden. Anna’s Dedushka (Ira’s Dad) must surely have been inside, as she is walking around without a t-shirt at all. This April’s weather isn’t too far off last year so far – I’d be perfectly happy if it didn’t actually get any hotter than it is right now, but I doubt it’ll plateau just yet.
Working Hard And No Builder’s Bum Thanks To Pampers!
Balzhan, Dr Natalya, Sveta and Ildar On The Sitting Stone
Last night over at the Bahat restaurant and bar was a good evening. Though certainly more formal that the previous weekend’s trip to Insomnia, it was nice to be able to chill out with mellow music, drink a few pints and just talk without having to raise your voice over loud music. I definitely felt a little underdressed there (it isn’t like I was wearing parish clothing, I had a reasonably smart shirt and clean trousers on), but most other men seemed to either have come straight from their office, or just wear suits in the evening anyway. Despite a few people wimping out early (though their presence was appreciated, obviously), David and I eventually took the hint that they were closing when the music was turned down so low we couldn’t recognise the samples, and all the bottles of spirits were being locked away at the bar. Despite it all, I was still in bed by my normal time, and managed to squeeze in a couple of quick posts. Sadly I still have a few to write this evening, so it looks as though I’ll not be making it down to Guns and Roses.
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Because I Hate Airports (Oliver Robbin‘s blog covering his charity bike ride from Britain to Australia) has some new posts up.
To learn a little more about his motivation and details about the planned bike ride, head on over there. You’ll also be able to read why he chose the title he did for the blog.
To check the path he’ll be taking, click the Route link, or head to Where The Hell Am I Now from the 17th April to see how far he has got. I’m hoping he’ll be posting more about the GPS based gadget he is using. If you want to subscribe to the blog in your favourite reader, the feed is here.
Once you’ve done all that, consider whether you have a few moments spare to tell your facebook friends about this, tweet it to all your followers, and hopefully donate as well. The ball has started rolling in that department, and he is up to 55 quid the last time I checked, but every little helps. Donations can be made with all the usual debit or credit cards, as well as PayPal.
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Dr Ken very kindly asked me before his last trip to Britain if there was anything I wanted him to pick up for me. Approximately 3/100ths of a second later I replied a box of Shreddies would certainly fit the bill. After not having them in Kazakhstan during the five years we’ve spent here, a few months back Paulo kindly bought them over from Europe. The packs disappeared very quickly, and I was glad that Ken asked so soon after they’d run out. I should have either opened this pack with more care, or used one of the proper cutting tools we have, but the pack became a little torn with my eagerness to sample the malty goodness. Irina and Anna both like them as well, so I think if anyone else in Astana misses Shreddies, they should grab a bowl soon!
A friend of ours is planning to go for a bike ride next month. So far, nothing too unusual, I grant you. The fact that he hopes to raise £20,000 for Shelter, a charity based back home in Britain gives you a small clue as to the scale of the task he has set himself…
Head on over to Because I Hate Airports, or directly to the About page perhaps, as he hasn’t yet started his ride, and there are no “normal” posts yet. In case you haven’t heard of Shelter before, they provide advice, info & advocacy to homeless people or those who live in bad housing. Check out the second link for a more detailed explanation of why Ollie has chosen to raise funds for that charity.
So where is he planning his little bike ride for? Land’s End to John o’ Groats? Nope, just a little further… Perhaps London To Istanbul? Nyet, he is aiming for London to BRISBANE (for those that failed geography, that is in Australia)!
A couple of his brothers happen to be in Australia, so I’m sure he’ll get a warm welcome when he arrives, however you can help in two ways…
1) If you live along the route above, and want to offer advice (local bike shops in case of emergency, roads to avoid etc.), accommodation or a quick bite to eat, or have undertaken such a huge ride before and want to pass on insights, follow him on twitter and send a message, leave a comment on his blog, or if you get really desperate, leave me a comment and I’ll pass it on to him. Remember he is leaving on April the 16th though, so don’t put it off!
2) DONATE, DONATE, DONATE! Once my next pay cheque comes through, I’ll be donating what I can using the widget on his blog, or the one below. Whether it is a dollar (saved by not going large on your next MacD’s meal) or a few hundred due to your horse coming in first on an accumulator bet, every little helps!
[edit]
I forgot to say, if you are in a country (like Kazakhstan) where blogspot sites are blocked are unreachable due to technical issues that will take years to fix, you can…
a) Remote into a PC of a friend in a different country – LogMeIn, VNC, Remote Desktop, VPN, whatever you are used to
b) Use a proper proxy server (though if it is a free one, turn it off before donating)
c) Use Opera (a browser like Chrome, Firefox or IE) and turn on the Turbo mode. Pretty much like b) but less work 🙂
Also, PayPal surprised me by not showing a big fat 0, so I’ve got the ball rolling. If you can’t donate, maybe leave him a good luck type message on his blog, or if you run a site yourself, consider linking to his?
