Autumn in Almaty

This is Almaty after 24 hours of rain and an 80km/hour wind, i.e., no smog. This is our new hiking club on top of the ridge of the photo above.

A paradigm shift in citizenship dynamics on our staff: 6/7 of the above are Canadian.

Cathy: Ottawa; the V's: BC; Peter and Judy Grey: Kamloops; Brock: Wisconsin.

The snow line is dropping here too.

Little Mosque under construction

There's a new mosque being built in our neighbourhood. Cody and I walked over to admire their craftsmanship. All brick and mortar; no wood, no steel. There was an aged, robed gentlemen at the main entry selling prayer mats and texts from the Koran. Cody and I really wanted to get into the site and meet the workers who were quite freindly and welcoming from behind the construction fencing.

I asked the gate guy "Moshe-nah? (Permission?)
He said, in Russian, "Do you speak Russian?"

I said "Nyet."

"Parlez vous Francais?"

I said "Petit," but I should have just said "non" in order to save time.

"Deutsche?"

"Nein"

"Urdu?" (the Hindustani language of the Muslim world)

"Nyet." (Holy macaroni: who is this guy? Four languages and counting.)

Patiently, as if to test me, he asked "Allah u Akbar?" (God is great?)

Finally! We could communicate! "Allah u Akbar!" I replied.

"Moshe-nah," he replied, smiling. ("Permission," and he gestured for us to enter.)

We took exactly 20 steps and then the mullah saw us (the mosque's main teacher). He stopped us and started giving the gate guy trouble. We've visited several mosques in 3-4 different countries and there are usually places within them that are clearly innapropriate for us to enter. But in Almaty, we weren't even allowed in the entry way. Maybe next time.

An entry for Grace Z'

Hi Grace Z'...how are you? (Grace is an 8 year old friend of ours in Grassy Plains, BC). You would really like it here. If you drive out of the city for 20 minutes, you can find "wild" horses. We went for a hike last weekend and we found 38 "stray" horses. We don't know who they belong to. Want one? The problem is, we'd have to pay for 3-4 seats on the plane just for one horse. And what if it got motion sick? Gross!

And besides, you'd probably want to get dressed up like these girls and take over the Southside.

Hike--That made us all CRY!!!

What a hike!! It started out so well, we first went up to this sign a month ago and thought that it was telling us not to go through the gate. So, we took this picture and had it translated--it says that we should watch out for falling rock! Not a big deal--have you seen the stairs.

The morning started out great, we did stairs for an hour and 15 but we were prepared for that and then we knew that we had a slow downhill walk for about 2 hours. After that we were going to cross the creek--up to our knees and then catch a gypsy taxi back to our vehicle. All went well and then....

The view from the top of the stairs--nice smog, eh!! The coal burners haven't even started--this is clean air!!!
The river is down there between us and that road and the ride back to our car!!!

We got to the bottom, a litte tired and very warm--it was about 30 degrees. A big problem though, the city decided to open up the dam and the creek turned into a small river and there was no way that we could cross it. We tried for about 45 minutes and there was no way. We finally had to make the decision to walk back soon before it got too late. We left just before 4:00 pm and we got back to our vehicle just before 7:00. It was not enjoyable and we were so tired. Kyla and Cody were such troopers--did I tell you that we were really low on water too. What a day but the next couple of days were not too enjoyable either. We were so stiff from doing the stairs for atleast 3 days--I am not bragging about that!!

Cody's B-day and More Hikes!!

The blog is working--so quickly down loaded a few pictures. They don't really fit together but who knows when we get the chance again.

Cody had his b-day w/in the first week of returning to Kazakhstan. It wasn't so easy to find friends that were back from the holiday but these guys made for a very fun afternoon. They wanted a tatoo and so while they waited for the water to make the tatto stick, they had to count to twenty in their native language. We heard Korean, Dutch, Kazkh, Russian and of course English.

Hike number 1--out to the apple orchards and then to the water dam which looks down upon a woman doing her laundry by hand in her front yard and you can see their outdoor shower too. The luxeries of Almaty.

Hike number 2--we drove up to Big Almaty Lake--the water supply for the city. On the way down we stopped by these statues. After a summer in Smithers with the surplus of bears--this is quite a change--this will be the closest thing we have here for wildlife!!

Summer in Canada

Return to K-stan: 2010

Frankfurt, Germany--The Zoo

On our trip to Canada, we had a lay-over in Frankfurt. We checked out a few sites in the city. The zoo was pretty fun and we had a great time getting over the jet lag by eating french fries with mayonaise and sausage with mustard--it was a real treat!!

Soccer spirit was in the air--they were painting their eggs in the flag colours!!

The old city square downtown Frankfurt!!

We were so tired that right after this we found a nice piece of grass and we all laid down for about an half of an hour.