ChrisMerriman.com » Kazakhstan

Jul 21 2007

Bayan Is Back :)

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 1:48 am

Bayan went over to England, or Manchester to be more precise for a few months. She hopes to go over there to earn her Masters degree, and needed to complete a gateway course. Go check the older personal posts for more info and pictures of her.
Anyway, we found out she was back in Astana today, so we all went to Vanquaro (or something that sounds like that. The sign was in English, but the vodka in my bloodstream is preventing me from achieving total recall. Now that was a cool Arnie film… Anyway, I’m drifting off course, apologies) to have a nice meal and for once, Bayan did not drive, so we could all have a few drinks.
A good meal, good company and good lime flavoured vodka.
Oh, and if women order a beer in this country, they almost always receive a straw, to enable them to drink their lager in a lady-like manner…

Here we have Bayan constructing and then devouring a Mexican thingy that the name of escapes me right now…

Finally, we have Ira and Bayan in a shot together…

Tags: Astana, Bayan, Irina, Kazakhstan, Manchester, United Kingdom

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Jul 17 2007

Good Company – Bad Food

Category: Eating Out,Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 11:04 pm

Serves me right really, I decided to stray from the menu items I knew I liked. I decided to try a sausage (I think it may have been a Georgian type). It was supposed to be a mix of two types of meat, with spices and some garlic. Given the lack of proper British bangers in this country, I thought I would try it out.
The chips, vodka, coke, sauce & Ira’s company were lovely. The sausage was a skin full of flavourless meat, with large chunks of fat mixed in. It required a good smothering of sauce to be finished. However, I now at least know what not to eat at that restaurant next time. They offer turkey sashliq on the menu, however you need to pre-order it, so they can buy the meat, so in the last three or four years, I have never managed to sample it.

Hi ho, Hi Ho its back to blogging I go 🙂

Tags: food, Irina

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Jul 17 2007

Spitoons

Category: Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 4:06 am

It is strange what concepts or ideas can sometimes inspire a post on my blog. A couple of meandering witterings ago, I mentioned I needed a spitoon having uttered two dirty words, as far as I am concerned at least. Anyway, as I was not sure how to spell it (in case you care, both spitoon or spittoon are apparently OK) , and I do not always trust FireFox’s built in spell checker, I popped over to Wikipedia, and bought up the page on spitoons.

Now, should the need ever arise, I can talk for, oh at least 30 seconds, on the subject of receptacles to spit into §. So why exactly did it fire my poor synapses momentarily? I think Kazakhstan needs a lot more public spitoons (or just plain rubbish bins) to prevent spit from just collecting on the pavements, and making otherwise respectable men look like British chavs in just a few seconds.

OK, what I really wish for is spitting to be frowned on a lot more over here, but as that has a snow flakes chance in hell of occurring, I would truly be happy if people just spat into something, rather than where I walk. It is like being back in the Lower High Street in Cheltenham. ahem, sorry, make that the ‘West End‘ LMFAO 🙂

OK, random suggestion over, just one more thing I especially liked – a quote from the Wiki

If you expect to rate as a gentleman
Do not expectorate on the floor

Now how do I say that in Kazakh, and where do I find taxi quickly enough afterwards to prevent a beating for being a smug self righteous bar steward 😉 ?
§ (Because we all know that anything found on the internet has to be true, don’t we 😉 )

Tags: Cheltenham, Firefox, Kazakhstan, Lower High Street, United Kingdom

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Jul 14 2007

Karra Has Jealousy Issues With My Keyboard

Category: Dasha&Kittens,Personal — ChrisM @ 12:35 am

Every time I spend a little too long with our PC, and Karra does not receive enough attention, be it a stroke, or scratch behind the ear, or a little laser fun, she decides to inform me of my forgetfulness my jumping up on the desk. She then proceeds to head butt my hands until I give up typing, and give her the attention she is apparently over due 🙂
Whilst this is cute most of the time, when she happens to sit on my mouse, or cause me too accidentally delete a paragraph or two, it can be a little frustrating.
Anyway, I probably need to work out some sort of time table – 45 minutes of typing followed by quarter of an hour of attention for the two kittens. Hopefully she will be happy with that sort of ratio…

Tags: Kara, laser

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Jul 13 2007

Kazakhstan Shows Solidarity With British (Weather)

Category: Kazakh Driving,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures,Weather — ChrisM @ 10:08 pm

The past couple of weeks have seen temperatures around 30-35 degrees, occasionally reaching for 40. I just spoke to Dad who said Britain has had pretty miserable weather, or Evesham specifically at the very least. This appeared to trigger a big rain storm back here in Astana 🙂 .
It was actually nice to feel a breeze, though without a sewer system, the rain has nowhere to go really.
See the pictures below for a little idea of how they cope with it.

Basically a big tanker comes along and a couple of guys get out. One sweeps the water to the other, who sucks it up with a big hoover type attachment.
As I write this post another thunder storm has started, and the big puddles all over the road have returned. Sadly, not all the motorists respect the weather, and still speed along the 6 lane road as if nothing had changed. No crashes yet, luckily.

Tags: Astana, Britain, Dad, Evesham, Kazakhstan, location

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Jul 13 2007

Kittens Plus Textured Wallpaper ? Good Idea

Category: Dasha&Kittens,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 4:23 am

The title pretty much says it all….
Despite having a scratching post, a nice scratch board that was originally infused with some cat nip or something similar, Karra and Muska both seem to see wallpaper, especially near corners of walls as something inherently evil that this flat needs to be defended from. We have tried telling them off, and they sensibly avoid the scene of the crime, for a good, well, err, 10 minutes maybe? In one other case, they scratching appears to be incidental to their trying to catch the chain on a light switch, near Ira’s dressing table.

Just in case you think I am exaggerating, please do check the pictures below.

That last photo has been quite heavily photoshopped to try and show where the claws were put to use…

Tags: Irina, Kara, Muska

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Jul 12 2007

Last Of The Alex Photos

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 4:59 am

OK, we have finally reached the end of the photos with this following shot…

I believe this was taken the day Alex arrived, after her little hiccup in Kaliningrad airport. If you want to read a little more about her trip over here, I’d recommend you go and read her blog – Dryad Musings.
We setup the the site whilst she was here, and Alex has already added a couple more posts since returning to her home. If you fancy reading posts that are a little more well written, rather than the normal stream of consciousness rubbish you normally find on my personal posts here :), then consider adding her to your bookmarks or even adding her feed to your reader.

Tags: Astana, Irina, Kaliningrad airport, Kazakhstan

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Jul 12 2007

Fountains And Horse Milk

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 1:37 am

Here we have a photo on a hot day, with Alex in front of a fountain. It was definitely nice to cool off your feet in the water. We tried to stay out of the midday sun, so as to avoid the hottest part of the day. At least that was my excuse for talking, drinking and watching stuff on the TV late into the dawn, then getting up late.

Here we have Alex being adventurous, drinking kumis (fermented horse milk) at the Ali-Ba-Ba restaurant. We chose a Kazakh style table, similar in height to the Japanese with some throw cushions for sitting on. Nice for chilling out and relaxing…

Tags: Ali-Ba-Ba restaurant, Astana, Kazakhstan

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Jul 11 2007

In-Laws Meet Alex

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 9:46 pm

Just noticed I appear to be posting these pictures in reverse order – the earlier posts have the most recent piccies, and this post has photos from towards the beginning of Alex’s stay here. I have deliberately left out quite a few days and subjects, as I want Alex to have them on her blog, especially as most are from her camera!

Anyway, that is a shot of the three of us in the back garden, probably just having being fed a lot of nice food, with a little to drink.

Here we have the ferocious guard dog, poised to rip out Alex’s throat, as she is unknown to Aynak. Well, OK, it might look like she is just licking us there, but I am sure she would have been prepared to defend her master’s property at the drop of a hat…

Tags: Astana, food, guard, Irina, Kazakhstan, nice food

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Jul 11 2007

A Day At The Races

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 9:26 pm

Whilst Alex was here, and during the week long celebrations for Astana being the capital city, and President Nazarbayev’s birthday, we all went to an afternoon of events over at a new race track they have built near Astana.

During the day, we saw a horse race, some fine equine skills (see above) that involved gymnastics on horses, and a game of goat polo. In case you have not come across it before, this is a game where two opposing teams, who are on horses, wrestle a goat carcass from the ground, then try to place it in the opposing team’s goal. The other team obviously want to stop them from doing this, and so block the players’ horses, and try to steal the goat for themselves.
Luckily, the new grand stand had a roof, so we did not over heat or burn on the fine hot & sunny day. They even gave out free beshparmak!

Tags: Astana, Birthday, Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev

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