Showing posts with label Astana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Astana. Show all posts

Sunday, July 17, 2016

We went to the beach today



Anyone who knows Astana geography knows there is no beach for a good 3 hours' drive. And I certainly did not drive 3 hours each way today to get to a beach. I took a gigantic shortcut.

Khan Shatyr looks like a half-falling down tent, created by famed architect Norman Foster.  It is, in fact, a shopping mall.   As a counterpoint to Dubai's indoor skiing, Astana boasts a beach on the top floor.  We had been meaning to check it out for almost the entire 23 months we have lived here and for one reason or another never made it.  Today, we rectified that.

The sand for the beach was imported from the Maldives.  The SkyBeach has two pool areas, one is a gently sloping beach-like wave pool, with two waterslides next to it (the slides drop off into a tiny pool that patrons are expected to quickly depart after splashing in).  The other pool has a lengthy sandy "shore" about 5 inches below water, but that is essentially a shelf and you abruptly enter the pool from there at full depth. This section of beach is also studded with a rainbow of rocks and pebbles.

The kids had the best time ever. We stayed way longer than I thought we would. They were so worn out tonight there was no talk of stretching bedtime just a little bit longer.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Leaving, on a jet plane ...

Well, not anytime soon, but it is for real now. I have orders and I have plane tickets. At this point it's just me and the kids, we don't know the details about what will happen with Terry (whether he leaves with us or 1-2 weeks later. He will leave Astana in August, that is for certain!)

With fewer than four months to go, everything seems funneled.  We base our meal planning on what is in our pantry we need to get through before departure day. we have stopped shopping in bulk and cancelled many a Subscribe and Save.  We're looking hard at anything we could donate: clothes, kitchen items, toys and although we've done one large load to the nuns, I plan to fill the car at least one more time.  Looking to sell the car. We try to keep the kids from buying things with their allowance, knowing we'll be moving them soon. Our last major allowance drawdown was when we convinced them to use their money to go visit the amusements at Khan Shatyr. We even let them buy themselves ice cream/sorbet at the end.  We have our bucket list of those things we figured we'd get around to doing, then never did - Khan Shatyr beach, you're on the agenda within the next couple of weeks!

At work we're looking forward to our successors, looking for time to prepare handover notes among regular work duties. Goodbyes are still a couple of months away, but there is that note of winding down.


Sunday, April 3, 2016

Date Night

Our date night plans were pretty sedate, then a friend called who also had a babysitter that night and we changed our plans to meet up with them. With the rain and additional movements in the evening we ended up deciding to take the car rather than try to catch cabs throughout the night.

It all started innocently enough.  Babysitter came, we hopped in the car and headed to Shoreditch, a restaurant we'd been hearing about.  It does burgers and stir fry type stuff. We tried one of each. The burger: completely forgettable.  The Indian chicken and spinach over basmati ... it tasted just like Indian food!  It had spice, and the right kinds, and the right flavors, and did I mention my mouth felt a nice warm burn that endured after the food was eaten?  We were ecstatic. It was probably on par with your average strip mall Indian in the USA but here in Astana, that makes it the best in the country.  The restaurant was also really funky and adorable, with a hopscotch game in the front entryway and live music appropriate for a restaurant (i.e. not too loud and not too distracting).  It was completely booked but we had come early and had no qualms promising to be gone before the table's second act at 11pm (outside the USA we have found there is no turnover for tables - the one you book is the one you own all night long). Also, service was FAST.  We got an appetizer and our main course and easily could have come and gone within 45 minutes.

Dinner over, we headed to the bar where we were supposed to meet our friends. It's drizzling. Our windshield wipers refuse to kick on. We pull over a few times to squeegee off the front windshield. Terry keeps turning the wipers on hoping to make them work. The back wiper is working just fine. This is not cool.  The bar is in a more populated part of town from where we live, and it took a few swings around the block and a half-block distance to find parking, When we got there not only was every table reserved, but almost all of the bar seating. We found our friends squashed into the corner of the bar against the wall.  The music is deafening.  The beer is Corona.  We decide to split.

The final stop of the night, The Rock's, was the perfect pub.  Several British standards on tap as well as the bar's own brew. Although they were also fully booked, our friends ran into friends and we all piled into their generously large booth. A good night was had by all.  When we returned to the car the rain had stopped and visibility was 100%.  Just for fun on the way home Terry tried the windshield wipers to see what would happen.  I think we all know what happened.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

A yellow plum

This week the market was particularly exciting.

Since October, fruit has been pretty predictable. Apples, pears, oranges, mandarin (clementines), pomegranate, bananas. Sometimes grapes, although they are usually the large globe grapes with all the annoying seeds (yes I am American and appreciate my convenience, in this case seedless grapes).

But this week there were plums. I bought four yellow plums at $1.00 each and considered it a good deal.  I was so rapturous the kids were begging to have one of the precious few. Of course I acquiesced.


Saturday, March 12, 2016

National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan

As we stare at our last few months, we realized there are many things in Astana we'd been holding off on checking out. But now there's no reason to keep waiting. A few weeks ago we had some days off and decided to spend some time at the "new" museum - it opened just before we arrived in 2014.

We were quite happily surprised, as we'd been warned that it wasn't much.  We spent the extra 1000 tenge for a visit to the gold rooms, and spent the bulk of our time there.  The rooms have a number of artifacts including a reproduction of the "Golden Man" (photo of something similar, if not actually him, to the left).  They provide headphones that play in English, Russian and Kazakh. The kids loved the interactive screens that gave more detailed information about various items that were in the rooms, for example Zoltan spent time flicking between screens of various weaponry and then we'd walk around and find some of the examples.

We made sure to get to the main entrance in time to watch the golden eagle soar to the sounds of ... well I'm not sure what the music was, but it sounded majestic and Kazkh and suited the mood.  I'll be honest, it wasn't as impressive as the golden peacock at the Hermitage, but it was worth seeing.

It didn't take too long for the kids to be just done, and it was lunch time anyway. We probably didn't even see half the halls in the museum, but will definitely make a return trip later when the weather is better (it is a bit too far to ask the kids to walk all bundled in snow gear, but would be a perfect distance when we pull out bikes or scooters).

Monday, March 7, 2016

514

Astana does boast a few decent restaurants.  We hadn't found anything to write home about, though, until now.  I am so grateful for friends who held a birthday dinner at 514, which gave me the chance to first - know of its existence and second - try it out.

The name 514 comes from the Montreal ZIP code, and I now have it muddled in my mind but the chef and/or owner have connections to the city. The interior gives a definite "we're not in Central Asia" vibe with pulsating music, black walls, crystal chandeliers and fake trees lit up in white Christmas lights.  But what we really care about is the food.

Sublime.

The bread that comes to the table is freshly made, slightly grilled, and accompanied with an oil and vinegar dipping tray.  Terry ordered a "chicken salad" starter, which was a lovely lineup of roasted veggies with some roasted chicken pieces mixed among them.  He then continued onto the burger which was enormous and messy but he reported very tasty.  My main was in my mind the highlight of the entire restaurant:  slow cooked beef ribs. It is hard enough to get beef ribs in the USA; to have something so tender, so falling-off-the-bone, and so well sauced would have made my day in Washington.

The only downside as I see it is that they only have two desserts on offer each night and they are not often anything overly exciting. Tasty, sure, but lacking the wow factor of the savory food.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

... but there's a secondary argument

... there is such a thing as too polluted.  We have days here where the pollution may not be China-bad (although we'd never know, there's no monitors in the city) but bad enough to see and to smell and to require any time outdoors kept to the bare minimum.

Shout out to the air purifiers and the Wii.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

A perfect date

Early in the week we booked the babysitter. 7:00 pm on Friday evening we're still bantering back and forth "where do you want to go"? We decide to try Trattoria, an Italian restaurant in Highvill where I have had several business lunches but have never had a real meal.

The night was stunning (and of course the camera was at home), we weren't starving, so we decided to go for a walk first. Somehow a year in we had never ventured into the Pyramid Park, but this was certainly not the last trip!  We spent about 45 minutes strolling the grounds, watching the fountains, and checking out different angles for possible future family photos with Astana backgrounds.

At the restaurant the waitress spoke excellent English. She asked if we wanted our pasta al dente or soft.  When she forgot our water she remembered on her own and was appropriately apologetic.  When I did not finish the dinner she asked if anything was wrong with the dish: "Really, you can tell me. If it wasn't good we want to know." (it was tasty, just too much food). I have rarely experienced this level of customer service outside USA or Japan. We tipped heavily.

The food was also good. The pesto was fresh, they used generous quantities of fresh mozzarella on the brushetta. Terry's carbonara sauce tasted more like a light alfredo so it was a surprise but actually the dish was a bit better than mine. His strudel didn't look much like a strudel but tasted just right. All in all we'd go back on the rare night we're in the mood for Italian food.

After driving home we decided to go for a walk around the Baiterek to digest some of that dinner and were amazed how many kids were still out so late in the evening. 

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Happy 4th of July!

Well, picnics and fireworks and red, white and blue weren't in tonight's plan here in Astana but I did manage to get a little of 'Murica ... went to see Terminator: Genesis and it was IN ENGLISH!

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

5 Pros and Cons on Astana

The New Diplomat's Wife is hosting a pro/con list of everyone's posts here. I figured I'd jump in.

Highlights
1. Winter activities.  If you can handle the cold (easy when you dress warmly enough), you can easily stay busy all winter.  Snowshoeing, ice skating, cross country skiing, snow fort building, all available for 6 months of the year.

2. It's a real city.  Everyone seems to think central Asia is a total backwoods.  We have Zara (although admittedly not Ikea). The opera is really good, haven't been to the ballet yet. Museums are few but not bad.

3. Pedestrian rights. When you walk into a crosswalk, the cars stop for you. Nevermind the car was trucking along at 30 mph 10 feet from the crosswalk. They will literally burn rubber to stop and avoid crushing you.

4. Fun architecture.  Where else can you give such a direction as "head past the pyramid, and when you get to the dog bowl turn towards the bread basket." (these are nicknames of buildings). The monument near our apartment puts on a nightly light show, as do several buildings.
Image result for astana pyramidImage result for astana dog bowlImage result for astana architecture
5. Indoor entertainment, especially for kids. The number of indoor amusement parks, restaurants with play areas, and even special treats like the indoor beach (sand imported from the maldives!) make the cold winter and hot summer much more fun.

Lowlights
1. Astana is like an island. The city is in the middle of the steppe, which is like an ocean of grasses.  The closest anything is Borovoe, 2.5 hours away, and it's a resort-ish town.  Basically you need to fly to get anywhere.

2. No cheddar cheese. In fact, no cheese of significant flavor. Food in general can be a challenge, epseically in the winter where of course nothing is fresh/local. There is a beef industry but I don't know what they do to these cows.  It has taken a good deal of trial and error to find meat tender enough not to stew.

3. Traffic.  There is little public transit infrastructure and all the lovely wide avenues means most things are just a bit too far away to walk.  The trip from our garage to Zoltan's preschool (less than a mile away) to work (about 1.5 miles away) takes 45-60 minutes if we leave the house too late. We could almost walk it as fast.

4. Pollution. In the winter they burn coal. You can smell it in the air, and some days look foggy but it isn't fog obstructing your view of across the street.

5.  The driving. This is related to, but separate from, the traffic problem. Many people drive like they just got their license (or perhaps never did).  The number of ridiculous, dangerous or just stupid things I have seen on the road ... just gotta shake my head. Of course this is a problem I find in Virginia too, just not quite so bad.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Spring has sprung

Today we went outside. No gloves. No hats. No scarves. No snowpants. No heavy jackets. No long underwear. No boots. Sneakers, and fleeces over short sleeved shirts. Oh, how sweet it is.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Happy Nauryz!

On March 22, otherwise known as Nauryz in Kazakhstan and a few other countries, we went to see how they celebrate.  We had gotten some advice of where the celebrations would be and headed over there.  I was a little surprised that it wasn't more crowded, although it threatened and finally did rain.

There were the traditional swings
 Men handling eagles


Yurts - it appeared as though different groups/organizations each decorated a yurt and then the public was invited in to check it out. I so want a yurt. Terry says we have nowhere to put one. I don't see where logic fits into this conversation.

We popped inside for lunch and it was raining when we came out. We popped into Congress Hall for the exhibition but it seemed to be the same kind of market as any other day.  We did linger at the honey stall, though, and brought home some treats.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Go Baris!

This is what we were doing last night

This is what Alex was doing last night.  

Monday, December 22, 2014

Our winter wonderland


Astana is the world's second coldest capital city, with the coldest recorded temperature of any capital (-52, not sure if it was Fahrenheit or Celsius but at that temp does it even matter?)

In the last month, we have been starting to enjoy what winter in Astana has to offer.  We went ice skating at a rink, which was important for getting some of our skates sharpened.  We then spent a few hours at the embassy skating rink (yes, you read that right. The embassy constructed an ice skating rink on the compound.  Our awesome facilities manager also created sledding hills out of mounds of snow.)  Here's the awesome part: on the embassy rink, for the very first time ever, Zoltan consented to skate without holding on to anyone or any thing. And after skating around for about 10 minutes on his own, he grabbed his hockey stick and started passing the puck with Terry. He immediately fell down after every shot. This was probably not on purpose in the beginning, but he definitely had decent enough stability towards the end that he didn't have to fall down. When skating around he would fall down and bounce right back up with an "I'm Good!"  Alex also had her stick and the three of them had a grand time until the blisters from her new skates started to bother her too much and bad mommy hadn't brought Band-Aids so she got benched.  Somewhere along the line Terry got his hands on a leftie stick so I will soon participate as well.  He was in absolute heaven playing with the kids on the ice. This is his dream come true.

There is also an ice skating rink at our apartment complex. created from boarding up and flooding a soccer pitch.  They recently added benches right outside the gate, and even flooded that area so from the time you get your skates on you are on ice.

Finally, the kids and I went to explore another phenomenon at our apartment - a sledding ramp, all iced over to keep the sled going farther, with stairs cut into the snow mound and a tunnel to play with off to the side within the same snow mound. We played out there for a good hour and the kids wanted to stay longer.

We haven't even looked for the ice city we hear gets constructed around now each year, nor have we yet snowshoe'd or skated on the river.  It's a good thing it's a long winter!

Friday, November 28, 2014

Epic Thanksgiving Post


The problem with being married to someone with artistic and design experience is that it is difficult to argue convincingly with them about layout and design issues. Of course, the family also knows not to argue with mommy about spelling or grammar, we all have our strengths. Why am I writing about this on Thanksgiving? Because I want several photos included in this post and the only way Terry will agree is if I write enough to make the pictures look nice spread among the text.

When you don't have your stuff, a lovely chilled bottle of white wine makes an acceptable rolling pin for the pie dough.  A tiny baby medicine dropper is a better-than-nothing baster. The borrowed roasting pan is too small so you use a tray meant to fit into the Mickey Mouse oven we used before getting our hands on the full sized American one, with the cooling rack sitting atop (and you hope the cooling rack is actually safe to use at high temps).  You lose a lot of turkey juice goodness because the tray is shallow and any movement makes the liquid slosh over.  There's a lot of talk between Terry and me of how things will be different next year.  The good news is that even with all that, everything looks delicious - which is why I wanted so many photos!  Notice the tray the turkey is sitting on - it's our new Uzbek pottery platter that we bought when we had a local craft bazaar at the embassy a few weeks ago. I am so completely thrilled with our purchases.

This year we're doing Thanksgiving at home, with only one dinner guest.  I am pretty sure this is the very first turkey we have ever cooked - we've always had somewhere else to go for Thanksgiving.  I am amazed at how relaxed this day is.  I made cranberry sauce this weekend and apple pie this morning. Terry made an overnight bread (started last night, baked it today).  We made dressing this afternoon while the turkey cooked, and cut veggies for the raw veggie tray.  Terry made gravy and mashed potatoes while I managed to get our car washed - it is so pretty! Such a deep dark red!  We got to the produce stand near the house and ran a couple of other errands.  We even had time to watch Frozen as a family (only our 4th time) and the kids got naps.  Our guest brought roasted beets and pumpkin pie. We managed to hit pretty much every mandatory Thanksgiving day food item without having to freak out about timing.  Maybe setting dinnertime for 5:00pm has a little something to do with it?

We also got a surprise visit from the owners of this apartment, with sweets and happy Thanksgiving wishes.  So lovely!

Friday, November 14, 2014

Handshake

Image result for kazakhstan flag
I know so many people around the world were excited and nervous at whatever time corresponded to midnight in D.C. on Monday, which was when handshakes went out.  I forgot that it was an important handshake day for us too.

Congrats, Terry!  Next summer when we go home for R&R, he'll actually return to post on a PCS out of his teleworking position and into the IPO slot in Astana.  I am sure that sentence just made some travel tech's head explode.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Borovoe


Astana is a relatively new city created in the middle of nowhere, with a lot of great open steppe around it and not much else. For the most part, a "getaway" involves an airplane. Except for Borovoe (now known by some - including Wikipedia - as Burabay, but I have never heard anyone use that word).

The Astana Outdoor Adventure group planned a hike in Borovoe that was reportedly very child friendly, so Saturday morning we got up and met almost 80 people in a parking lot and then caravanned in a dozen or so vehicles for three hours to a spot that I thought was remote enough I couldn't imagine how anyone could have discovered it. Nobody got separated from the group or otherwise lost. Some of the sedans almost didn't make it the last part of the drive, and we did agree that the Xterra really is the right vehicle for this post.

I've got to give the kids credit - they were rock stars.  Zoltan doesn't really love hikes anyway, and he missed his nap.  I had figured we would be out there 1.5-2 hours then call it quits.  We hiked around for more than 3 hours!  There were fits of whining but those were surprisingly weak and brief.  There were piggy back rides on the walk back to the cars, which was an excellent strength training exercise for mom.

When we made it back to the cars, we headed out to the second adventure of the day - a hotel stay at the Rixos Borovoe.  Many embassy families had recommended it and I can see why.  The place is a little resort - two playgrounds outside, a walking path along the lake, an indoor pool, sauna, steam room, and apparently if you can find the correct site there's inclusive deals with dinner or spa treatments included in the room rate.  We somehow hadn't eaten even a fraction of what we'd brought for the day of hiking so we ran to the restaurant after settling into the rooms.  I had promised the children at the worst moments of the hike that we could swim before going to bed so we hit the pool for 40 minutes too.  Next morning we were up early enough to see the last pink fading in the sky, reflected in the lake.  At breakfast we ran into friends who were also staying there, Alex got to borrow a book (she just runs through them and we still don't have our ship freight), and then back to the pool for a couple of hours before rinsing all that chlorine off and heading home.

On the way home we bought honey and vareini from a guy selling it on the side of the highway.  He was one of at least a half-dozen similarly-situated vendors or groups of vendors we saw on our side of the road.  Of course the vareini, made from some berry we didn't know, was очень полезно (very good for health).  I guess Terry should start slurping it down!

As a follow-up, it turns out our hike was captured on Kazakhstani television (must have been a slow week).  You can watch the clip here.  Look for Alex around 0:50.


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Drinking or no drinking?

The other night we went for dinner with friends. They speak better Russian than we do, so when the hostess asked something as we were handing our coats in to the garderobe (coat check, not medieval toilet) I didn't pay too much attention and let the friend answer.  The hostess led us from one room to a different one, and then everyone stopped and looked quizzical.  They asked the question again. It definitely wasn't "smoking or non-smoking room?" which is what I had gotten used to in Russia.

It was a Turkish restaurant. The question was "drinking or non-drinking room?"

Monday, October 13, 2014

Hockey time

A friend kindly picked up tickets for us when she got tickets for herself this week, so on Friday we went to our first Kazakhstani hockey game. Go Barys!!  [barys = snow leopard, a Kazakhstani national symbol]  We had been warned about the madhouse of parking, and several people without kids recommended that we take a taxi or bus. We decided we'd try it in the car, as overtired children at the end of the night are best contained within car seats and not waiting outside in the cold for either of the other options.

We got to the stadium a bit less than an hour before game time. A good deal of parking still available at the stadium. Free. Yeah.  We get in and look for food. Not great options, next time we will try to get to the game even a bit earlier and grab dinner near the stadium.  The stadium seats 4,000 people. Cozy.  We hear the new stadium will be finished by next season.  We took a wander before game time and there were a bunch of rooms that seemed to be holding different kinds of practices, such as dance or karate, around the main arena.  There were two ping pong tables inexplicably in an open area by the end of the hall [during one intermission we watched people playing, apparently it's a "thing" and they bring their own paddles and balls].

It was a good game, the home team won and the kids stayed entertained. When it was time to go there was a small crush of people on the way out but we were soon outside. Walk to the car, get the kids strapped in and .... five minutes after I got into the car we were on the road. The "traffic" on the road was another 2-3 minutes, maybe.

Oh, and did I mention the tickets cost 1000 tenge? That's about $7, being generous with the conversion rate.  I think we'll be going back.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Car: Finally Victory

We didn't have any more pockets of free time until Saturday morning so that is when we went to make our second attempt at getting tires.  We were told at the embassy if we had pressure sensors for our tires we had to go to this one specific place to get the tires put on, even if we buy them elsewhere (as we had to - they don't sell tires at this place). So I called every half hour Saturday morning until they were open because their hours are not on the web site nor their telephone's prerecorded message.  We did ok finding the place except that the map showed the place being several blocks earlier than it really was.  We bought the tires and they said it would be about 10 minutes and they would bring them out, we could go wait in our car.  Um, it is freezing and sleeting and my children are with us, so I think we'll wait right here.

After a bit of time Terry went down to wait in the car. The kids had a snack and were playing with the few toys they had brought. Time ticks on. They eventually try to tell me to go downstairs and wait. I tell them I will go when we have tires in the car.

Once that happens it's off to get the tires put on. Here is victory #1.  I had to explain that we wanted the spare put back under the car, one new tire on the rim of the busted tire that was currently in the car and then that put on the back, the other new tire on the other back rim and lastly the tire from the back rim to replace a front tire that was well worn.  It was all done perfectly.  And we were able to lunch while we waited, thanks to the Hardees that shares space with the gas station next to the shop.

Except the tire pressure sensor was not re-set, indicating that they probably didn't do whatever was supposed to make them the only place to get pressure-sensor-tires replaced.

Victory #2 came during naptime, when I had to run out and buy a birthday present for a party Alex will attend this week. The invite came Friday, the party is Wednesday. Felt like we were back in Russia. With the help of the car I was now completely free to use - with gas, windshield wipers and a spare tire - I was able to run to the store and back in record time. I even didn't get lost!