Just shot this clip (#qik) http://qik.ly/Cthxk
Oct 01 2010
Just shot this clip (#qik) htt…
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Oct 01 2010
Just shot this clip (#qik) htt…
Just shot this clip (#qik) http://qik.ly/Ctg6z
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Oct 01 2010
Just shot this clip (#qik) htt…
Just shot this clip (#qik) http://qik.ly/CtgjL
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Sep 16 2010
Double Trouble
The 16th of March saw us leaving Evesham, but we managed to catch up with Irina on the way back to Swansea. (IrinaG to be more specific. My Irina met IrinaG in Cheltenham, I think at her office. The spooky thing is that IrinaG also comes from Kazakhstan. The fact two ladies called Irina randomly meet in an office is probably reasonably rare, but then to add Kazakhstan as a common factor must make it reasonably rare!)
We met up at a pub that I’ve forgotten the name of (either Irina, can you help out here?), and Anna behaved herself very well whilst we munched through a delicious lunch. Cheltenham’s big race week was starting that day, and I’m glad we lived in Cheltenham for so long, as we managed to use a few country lanes to avoid the traffic that was beginning to pour into the area!
IrinaG And Anna Pub Lunch
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Sep 08 2010
Mad In Argentina
OK, rather than again forgetting to post about a friend’s site until well after it is properly launched, I thought today I would write about a site that exists but doesn’t yet have any content. One to bookmark (or subscribe to) and wait for new posts in the future. The site is called Mad About Wine, and will be run by our good friend Javier. He runs wine tours back in Argentina, and he will hopefully be posting not only contact details (word of mouth from previous visitors seems to have increased demand), but also some pictures and thoughts about the beautiful countryside, successful vineyards and great people to found down there. At some point, the original Argentinian domain name ( madaboutwines.com.ar ) will also point JavierEppens.com , but first we need to navigate our way around the government run Argentine domain name admin system. Not easy when… a) I speak no Spanish b) A lot of the menu items are labelled with graphics, not text (difficult to translate) c) The admin system itself is quite counter intuitive at points. If anyone reading this has dealt with their system before, and has 10 or 15 minutes to spare, please do let me know.
At some point, when Javier remembers to pass on the user name and password needed, I’ll be importing all the content from his original Mad About Wine Blogspot site into JavierEppens.com . The main reason for moving that data is the warning that you get when entering the blogspot version, and also it looks a bit more professional to have your own proper domain name, and you’re not at the mercy of Google’s policies in the future.
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Sep 08 2010
Rescued In Australia
I thought I had already written a post about a site that Con (Hydrophonics is his stage name) has put together. Rescued Entertainment has a lot of information on the artists involved, as well as links to the Twitter and Facebook accounts. If you are in Australia and want a good night out, keep an eye open for the next event that Rescued Entertainment are involved in. The launch party seemed to go down pretty well, as the photos on Con’s own Facebook account show. I’ll check with him before posting the link to his personal account. Anyway you can catch a mix just below this text, and feel free to leave a comment on the FB page, and follow their Twitter account.
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Sep 07 2010
Shiny Seb
In case you haven’t browsed the Celt Photographic site recently, check out John’s latest posts when you get a moment (August and September would be a good start).
Anyway, if you check the recent entries, you can see the transformation of Seb from a bruised, battered and cut mountain biker, to a lizard man! All still images are copyright Celt Photographic, please make contact via the previous links if you wish to use any pictures etc. etc.
Seb has also just posted up a video that the artist who painted him has uploaded, and I’ve also included another from her collection.
Any ladies interested in Seb should send me their details, along with a photo, so I can vet them first!
(Small last minute correction, the smaller image of Seb was apparently taken by John’s friend Nick, I’m hoping he won’t mind me using a low-res copy on this site.)
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Aug 11 2010
Käwap Restaurant For Another Birthday Celebration
Another post where I’ve taken a few individual tweets and tidied them into one entry. 11th August was my mother-in-law’s birthday, the day after Ira and my wedding anniversary. We headed on downstairs to the new Azerbaijani restaurant located on the ground floor of our building. We hadn’t tried it before, and there was no one else there during our meal, so we were assured of their undivided attention 🙂 Losha’s parents (Igor and Natalya) joined us, and over all Anna was pretty well behaved.
First up we have a quick picture of a salad that was ordered. It doesn’t come out so well with a wobbly camera phone shot, but in the middle of the plate is a radish carved into a rose shape. Very pretty. Personally I have no idea how it tasted, as I’m not a huge fan of rabbit food (meat, potatoes and pasta are my favourite core ingredients), but no one seemed to complain.
Radish Rose - Really!
They didn’t have any highchairs, and after trying to get Anna to repeat her previous good behaviour in such situations, we gave up and grabbed the one from our kitchen.
There was in fact no turkey sashliq despite it being on menu. This has happened in a few places in Astana. If you have your hopes set on a certain dish before you arrive, best to phone ahead and speak to someone first. Otherwise a good selection of various sashliqs (kebabs). We asked for something without any bone or lots of gristle (I love the taste of meat, but hate thinking about the fact that it used to be an animal. If steak wasn’t so tasty, I might have been converted into a vegetarian in another life. That would mean eating vegetables though. Anyway, I digress…). When the kebab arrived, it was on the bone still. The waitress didn’t seem to understand why we were surprised to see bone in a dish she recommended for having no bone.
Considering that the décor and ambience of the place was reasonably up market, the vodka & beer was reasonably priced. The baursaki were tasty, but most definitely reheated to make them seem over fresh. Better than stone cold and greasy to be honest 🙂 The chicken lyalya (spelling ?) shashliq was tasty. Basically minced chicken shaped into a sort of sausage shape.
Chicken Kebab - No Bones
At one point Anna seemed to get a bit bored, and decided to get the camera out. I’ve not yet checked the memory card to see the sort of shots achieved.
Anna In Her Highchair
Finally, during a cigarette break outside, I took a quick picture of the restaurant name. I couldn’t step any further back, so had to take a diagonal shot. Luckily our WiFi signal just reaches downstairs to this point, so I was able to upload some pics without using up my KCell credit 🙂
I'll Rewrite This Caption When I Know How To Spell The Name
oh, I’m hoping someone can correct me on the correct spelling in latin characters for the restaurant?
[edit]
Thanks to Oleg and Walton for their help with the spelling, I’ve updated the post to reflect this.
Aug 03 2010
Good Evening And Dan’s Birthday Meal At Tiflis
OK, I’ve removed the six posts that were submitted by my phone on Saturday night and amalgamated them into this one post, with the videos embedded.
It was DanD’s birthday the next day, and so we headed to one of his favourite restaurant’s – Tiflis. I forgot to check in on foursquare or Google Latitude, so don’t have the exact co-ordinates, but I’ve searched on Google Map with Irina, and put where we think it is. The road is called Imanova St, but Google has a different label for some reason. However it is nearly opposite Cinema City, so that is the right street.
The old outdoor (well it had a roof but cut down walls to allow fresh air through) section had just finished being renovated, and we were all very pleasantly surprised by the new look. There are two floors, with an open central courtyard. Downstairs there was a normal seating area with lots of tables, and upstairs had some one table rooms. This worked out well, as they had a Georgian band playing for a lot of the night (see the videos below). The band were great, but when we wanted to talk, it was good to be able to shut the double doors, stick on the air conditioning, and not have to shout.
The food itself was great, with some sort of cheesy bread as a starter for me (salads still haven’t snuck onto my menu!), and a lamb sashliq (with chips obviously) for main. We were there for around three or four hours, and had a chance to congratulate Dan on his upcoming birthday (25th if you believe the normally otherwise honest Dan), and talk about life over here. The service was good, especially by local standards, and I’d happily recommend the place for eating out if you want to try something a bit different. You may find you need to reserve the rooms in advance, and I’m hoping Dan will read this post at some point and leave their telephone number here.
A couple of clips of the room, the company and the main course…
Everyone was still very sober by then, not many beers drunk or shots of Cha Cha served. The restaurant has definitely switched suppliers when it comes to the Georgian spirit of Cha Cha. It didn’t feel like paint stripper going down your throat, if anything it was a little closer to brandy, but not overly so.
OK, onto the entertainment…
Aug 03 2010
Serenaded For His Birthday
OK, I’ll be tidying up the front page later by compressing all the individual Qik based tweets into one post, with some information on DanD’s birthday celebrations at Tiflis on Saturday night. The short version is that the renovations have much improved the experience there (nothing wrong with it in the first place TBH). Anyway, the live music made a refreshing change, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and I’ll stop now as we are taking Anna for a walk to a local mini-park that I’ve not been to before. Will try and remember to take some pictures…
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