At Melnitza (the Ukranian restaurant with tasty garlic breads) with family celebrating Ira’s Dad’s brithday http://twitpic.com/1z8p44
Jun 23 2010
At Melnitza (the Ukranian rest…
Jun 15 2010
Enforced Lock In
We had an interesting time watching the England vs USA football match on Saturday. A few friends came over to the flat pre-game, to warm up our drinking arms. We moved onto a bar (I think it is called Goal Keeper?), where power cuts meant we missed the American goal, and after the power flicking on and off for a while, we tried to leave the bar and head to the Hotel Radisson (as they were more likely to have a generator). However, the security guards had locked the front doors before we could leave, and were telling people to go back into the bar and wait, as electricity would return. Before we made complete idiots of ourselves with people holding batons, the owner appeared, apologised (I think she realised locals might take that kind of brute force attempt to keep customers, but ex-pats would throw a hissy fit and tell their friends, and therefore she could lose business).
So we left, but getting into our designated driver’s car we noticed someone had forgotten their top. He went back in, I hung around outside to start banging on the doors and windows if they didn’t let him out. This time some locals were caught trying to leave without paying, and the guards were literally throwing them back into the bar. Our friend got out, we went on to the hotel, and although they also had power cuts, they didn’t last as long. Obviously the match ended in a draw (I would have won 16,000 Tenge if England had managed to score one more goal!), but given that we had both Americans and Brits in our group, I suppose it was a fair enough score to keep all parties happy. I’ll leave commentary on the actual football played to other more knowledgeable people.
Jun 15 2010
Legless Walking Home
Last week, on the way home from the Queen’s Birthday Party at the Radisson, I managed to totally avoid the manholes that had no cover on them. There aren’t that many deep holes in the pavement, so the walk home didn’t seem too dangerous.
However, my brain didn’t tell me to avoid those with covers. Walking over one, the entire cover spun 90 degrees forward, meaning my right leg disappeared down the hole to just above my knee. It scraped off some hair and a few layers of skin, and inflicted a few small cuts. Add in a few nasty bruises and a funked up knee and ankle to complete the list.
I am glad Anna wasn’t around (Irina’s Mum was baby sitting her back at our flat), as quite a lot of very crude English words were uttered whilst I clambered out of the hole. Some how my suit trousers survived, with only some dirt on them, rather than the expected tears.
It is possible that if I’d been anything like approaching sober, I’d have avoided the stupid manhole altogether, however I didn’t think that a proper cover would just flip over like that. Lesson learnt, no permanent damage, and something to write about on my blog 🙂
Jun 12 2010
QBP Videos
So, as I mentioned in a tweet, Irina and I were invited to the Queen’s Birthday Party (organised by the British Embassy) on the 10th of June at the Radisson Hotel here in Astana. This was the first QBP since the new ambassador here in Kazakhstan took over.
A short summary would be no speeches (apparently the correct tradition for celebrating HRH’s birthday), a good local band that played a wide variety of covers, free good food (fish and chips in cones again, as well as a buffet (curries, beef kebabs, potato wedges 🙂 ) and free drink. I’ll leave the details of my mishap on the way home until another day.
The following videos were supposed to be uploaded on the night, but I was too drunk TBH. They were then supposed to be transferred via Qik, but once again the program got very tempremental. So, I reverted to YouTube.
I’ve not yet had a chance to actually watch all the videos, but I wanted to post these up tonight, as I’m away from the PC tomorrow for half the day, then giving a lesson and running an English Talking club in the afternoon and evening, then hopefully off to watch the England vs. USA football match during the night.
So it was now or at some random point in the future for embedding these clips.
Oh, and Irina took some proper photos with a real camera, so I’ll try ad post those up soon as well.
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Jun 10 2010
Blade Runner On Thin Ice
Irina sent me a link last week that I forgot to publish. I’ve found an accompanying video, so I suggest you watch that first…
Now, the exact details vary on the internet, depending which source you check, but whether he was on his way from or to an ice rink, driving with ice skates on has to be seen as particularly dumb. Some people said he was driving home because he realised he needed normal shoes to drive (how did he get to the rink?), others say he was trying to save time by not having to change when he got to the ice rink. In any case, driving and drinking alcohol (different countries have different laws/social norms I realise) to the point where you think that ice skates are safer than bare foot driving has to be a big no-no.
May 21 2010
Anyone know what is on fire in…
Anyone know what is on fire in Astana? Buildings in the way, but looks like area around Congress Hall or further- http://twitpic.com/1pkpea
The smoke looks too black, and is from the wrong area of town for this to just be the normal industrial pollution from factories, or agricultural burning…
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May 15 2010
Buddy Bears @ Bayterek http://…
Buddy Bears @ Bayterek http://twitpic.com/1o0381
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May 07 2010
2nd Collection Of Videos From Last Night
Here is the second part to the compilation of videos taken last night…
Sitting Down Inside Attila Restaurant
Quick Look Around Outside And Inside Attila Restaurant in Astana
Front Entrance To The Restaurant
More Dancing
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May 07 2010
Compilation Of Videos From B-Day Party
As all the videos were taking up the whole front page on this blog, and contained a few dud, four second long accidental recordings, I decided to compile them into a couple of posts instead.
It was a family friend’s birthday party at the Attila restaurant in Astana, and there was food, drink, dancers, music and an MC, as usual.
Oh, the titling of Qik videos (on the site) is totally screwed up again, most of the videos have the title from the previous clip, and virtually all of them lost these (wrong) titles when tweeted. Combine that with the jerky 320×240 video, and you can see why I’m still looking for an alternative Windows Mobile based live video streaming app…
Shots from outside the Attila (as in Attila The Hun) restaurant, here in Astana…
Irina’s Dad toasting the Yuri Constantinovich – the birthday boy 🙂
People dancing
Golka! (People chant this at weddings to encourage the bride and groom to kiss, a little bit like when the priest/vicar says “the groom may now kiss the bride” during a wedding ceremony). This was a reference to when Yuri and his wife got married many years ago.
Here we had an example of Korean dancing from some local enthusiasts (Yuri has Korean heritage, Kazakhstan has a wide mix of nationalities making up it’s population)
His Mum toasts Yuri
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Apr 27 2010
Another Kazakh Blog
I was just catching up with some of the Astana and Kazakhstan based pages over at Expat-Blog, when I realised I hadn’t yet checked out the Kazakh Nomad blog. Obviously this site, KZ Blog and also the Oyster one have been read, and in deed linked to from here in the past, but for some reason I’d not looked into the last entry on the Kazakhstan blogs page. The lady now lives in Astana, and teaches English, so I suspect she has/will cross paths with a few of our ex-pat English Language teachers. I’ll have to check around and see if anyone has met her in real life yet…
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