In a little over four months, Mum will be coming to see us here in Kazakhstan again 🙂 Although we had all been hoping this would be possible, since she bought the idea up, with my younger brother and Roz having had a child recently, another bargain holiday for Mum and John found on eBay and the prices for plane tickets to Astana, nothing was guaranteed. We have told Anna that her Nana is coming over, and she points at the photo of her and John, so she might even understand what we’re talking about 🙂 We are all really looking forward to seeing Mum again, and I’m pretty sure Mum will be looking forward to seeing her granddaughter.
Now all I need to do is control my online purchasing, and try not to take Mum over her baggage allowance. If you visit relatives via road, gifts can be reasonably bulky, however as the flight isn’t direct, and you only get 20 kilos, I might need to limit myself to some Shreddies, Orange squash and a couple of powered USB hubs 🙂
Mum did find an airline called Baltic Air (a sort of Ryanair/EasyJet equivalent based in the Baltics) and although their prices were almost half of the next cheapest fare (Turkish Airlines), the reviews indicated that this wouldn’t necessarily be a wise choice to make.
Anyway, John (and Gwen obviously) will be staying in Britian, so we’ll have to wait until out next trip to the UK for a reunion with them, but we’re over the moon that Mum/Carol/Nana is coming to Kazakhstan again 🙂
May 24 2010
Mum Coming To Kazakhstan Again!
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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 20 2010
Few Videos From This Evening
Three videos shot earlier tonight, embedded into one post, instead of the three that were originally taking up too much space. We went over to Astana Park so Anna could have some fresh air, and I realised coming down the stairs that I’d not shown what the walk over to the park looked like. I’m still hoping to find a better quality replacement for semi-living streaming from my phone, but for now, you’ll just have to either put up with it, or not click play 🙂
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May 15 2010
Plans finally sorted 4 2day, m…
Plans finally sorted 4 2day, meeting with company re. English Club teacher position, then onto Ali Ba Ba-Beef & Beer, Bayterek – Buddy Bears
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May 15 2010
Beer, Brilliant Buddy Bears And Babies
DanC is back in town for a few days, so we are hoping to meet up on Saturday and see how his family is doing. The other Dan (DanD) will be joining us after his daughters finish their afternoon nap, by which time I hope to have had a few relaxing beers (one advantage of not driving over here), some barbecued beef, and then we’ll all move on to Bayterek to have a look at some brilliant buddy bears. Hopefully the walk will be healthy, as beer and shashlik aren’t known for their fat/calorie free content 🙂 Why all the letter B’s in this post? No idea TBH, but the buddy bears started this whole alliteration theme…
In case I forget to blog on them, or we end up not going there for some reason, here is a quick summary –
The Buddy bears have arrived in Astana! There are 125 brightly painted bears standing in between Baiterek and Keyruen shopping centre. They stand at over 2 meters high painted by famous artists from all over the world, each one representing a country. They are an event of the ‘Germany in Kazakhstan’ programme and will be displayed until July.
(suggested meeting date and time information cut from original e-mail, my thanks to the Astana International Women’s Club for sending Irina this information)
Take a look at the website http://www.buddy-baer.com/united-buddy-bears/world-tour/astana-2010.html for more info and some great pictures.
May 14 2010
Pizza At KFC?
If you search for the words Pizza and Astana in Google, this site has been number one for a while now. Fair enough, there aren’t that many other English language sources that discuss eating out in Kazakhstan’s capital city, I’m just not sure why the post that Google thought best matched this search term was one on the KFC Rostik outlet in Mega? I have written a few specific posts on pizzas in Astana, both in restaurants and home delivery, but apparently fried chicken was a better match.
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May 10 2010
4G is coming/(has arrived?)in …
4G is coming/(has arrived?)in Astana.Mobile companies still on Edge connections, 3G not here yet!More details to follow. WiMax in co. name??
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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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May 07 2010
Arse. Still no power. Ira read…
Arse. Still no power. Ira reading #UKGE results over mobile phone. Fire engines/men parade? again in Astana park – http://twitpic.com/1loyms
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