Dom Joly recently wrote an article on eating horse meat in Kazakhstan. My thanks to Irina for sending me the link. All of the comments there (I see KZBlog got there first!) seem to be defending horse meat dishes, though I feel that spirited1away has slightly overstated his(?) case when claiming that Britain has no dishes to be proud of.
It is true that Dom seems to have slipped into lazy journalism, OR really didn’t have much luck with the choice of restaurant his host selected. I just hope the poor guy doesn’t read the complaints online – it does sound pretty ungrateful, as I imagine Dom would have expressed an interest in finding out what unique experiences Kazakhstan had to offer. Yes, the man is (at least in Britain) known as a comedian, and most people would expect his articles to offer a humorous short story, but as one commenter stated, this just seems like lazy journalism.
Apr 06 2010
Funny Man Isn’t
Apr 02 2010
Pelmeni vs. Ravioli (And Salad)
The 13th of February saw Anna trying the closest alternative to Pelmeni that you can buy in the shops in Britain – Ravioli. It was a kids version (so low in salt and hopefully other things that you should have in moderation), and Anna seemed to enjoy it. I do sometime miss having the sweet tomato sauce when we eat pelmeni over here, but then again tinned ravioli doesn’t really lend itself to frying as well as boiled pelmeni do, so I suppose it is swings and roundabouts.
You There, Listen To Me!
Ravioli And Salad
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Apr 02 2010
Suggestions For Kazakhstan – Part II
OK, ten months later than intended, here the series continues from the first instalment.
I’m staying out of the political (OSCE chairmanship, laughable implementation of “democracy” (whether you use the Western definition or not), political prisoners etc.) side of things, as I don’t want the renewal of my permission to stay in the country to be questioned next year.
So, on a more personal level, first things first… Whoever decided that private individuals (as opposed to companies etc.) should only be allowed one international parcel to be received per month, please realise this is a ridiculous law. So stupid, we weren’t even aware of it until this week, when we wondered why only one out of two DHL parcels from Britain had turned up. Strangely enough, if you pay customs a lot of money (around the price it took to send the box over here in the first place!) then you can have more than one a month. We also need to pay DHL again, as they say to deliver it to Astana, once Customs in Almaty release it, will be another chargeable service – despite our initial payment including that leg of the journey. OK, so I’m drifting off national policies into company’s customer service attitudes differing in different continents here, and the other suggestions will be a little more wide-ranging, and involve less infrequent occurrences.
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Mar 25 2010
Midnight Snacks On The Bed
The 12th of February saw us start our journey to Britain. We decided to break the journey by staying overnight in Istanbul. Although we didn’t see much of the city, it was good to finally make it out of the airport. Anna behaved incredibly well, considering the flight lengths, her age, and didn’t seem too bothered by staying the night in a hotel. She had a little picnic on our bed before settling down for the night, and continued to surprise us by being a little sweetie on the flight to Heathrow.
Hopefully she will repeat the trick in just over four days, though this time we are flying straight through to Astana, assuming we manage to make the connecting flight in Istanbul. Anyway this is the last photo of Anna before we hit Britain…
Anna In Istanbul
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Mar 25 2010
Wrapped Up Furry Well
Just under a week before wel left for Britain, this photo was taken on the 7th of February, with Anna on her sleigh, wrapped up in some old fur coats, as we had not bought the fabric covering that we share between Anna’s sleighs in the in-laws’ house and ours. Irina did tell me a story that involved a small child being wrapped up similarly, but I’ve forgotten the details, and also the Russian term that could be applied to Anna.
Hopefully Irina will leave a comment here sometime, and everyone, as well as me, can be educated 🙂
Wrapped Up Furry Well
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Mar 25 2010
Photos And Didgeridoos
OK, so whilst in Britain this blog, and Anna’s pictures specifically have become somewhat neglected. I’m hoping the occasional photo-laden tweet (and recent addition to the publishing schemes used here – Qik, for records of live streams broadcast) has been enough to keep you going, but judging from the Alexa rank, I’ve lost a few people…
So, back to where we left off – 6th February 2010 (for any new readers stumbling across this post, Anna’s website automatically imports Anna-related posts from this blog, and I wanted to be able to easily tell when the photos were taken, should we be browsing her site in the future.
The first clip is of Anna checking out some photos on Babushka’s camera, followed by a little Didgeridoo basic skills practice.
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Mar 12 2010
Arrived in Evesham (Dad’s) fin…
Arrived in Evesham (Dad’s) fine. Hope to see Chelt people over the coming days. Two & a half weeks left in Britain. Back to Clydach Tuesday.
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Feb 21 2010
An Apple A Day…
Getting back to photos being posted in the order they were shot, here we have one from the 6th of February, the weekend before we left for Britain. Anna has recently really started liking eating apples (one little bite after another all adds up), as well as ecstatically devouring bananas whenever she spots one. Anna is sat on the new playmat/rug for her in the kitchen in that house. She now wears shoes most of the time she is up and wandering about, though we do also try and occasionally ensure there is some bare feet time 🙂
Munching On An Apple At Babushka's
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Feb 19 2010
Chomp, Gulp & Brrrrm!
As the time drew closer and closer for our trip to Britain, my mind automatically started fixating on those things I missed from home. So what have I crossed off the list already, since returning to Britain?
A nice Chinese takeaway – I’ve slowly discovered that there are normally a few dishes I can enjoy, and Irina loves them.
Shreddies and Weetabix (not simultaneously) with milk that tastes like it is supposed to 🙂
Coke Zero (I love Coke, but want to have some teeth left – Coke Zero isn’t yet sold in Kazakhstan). I still try to be sensible, but knowing that I’m not destroying my teeth quite so quickly is a relief 🙂
Tinned steamed chocolate pudding (the two minutes and you’re done type – apparently not yet a recognised treatment for depression, I suppose not enough peer reviewed research papers have been written???)
Marmite on toasted tiger bread (white bread with some sort of coating on top, no felines harmed, I promise).
Orange squash (for non-UK readers, this is a concentrated fruit based drink that you dilute to taste)
and, of course, driving our car again.
We still need to see Dad, visit friends in Cheltenham, have proper fish’n’chip shop chips and a battered burger, a bacon double cheese burger from Burger King and buy a few things for Anna, but given that we’ve been here less than a week, I think the amount of ticks in the To Do list is more than satisfactory 🙂
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Feb 17 2010
Quiet Arrivals
Almost a week with no posts! As you may have guessed, I, Irina and Anna all arrived in Britain safely last Friday. Our car is back on the road, various gadgets have been fixed/sorted at Mum’s, and we are starting to arrange seeing people across the country. It is Anna’s first birthday this Sunday, so we also need to sort a card and some presents. Speaking of presents, I’m looking at getting a Seagate 500gb Portable Hard Drive
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