Day 2

This morning we woke to the fragrant, penetrating odor of coal in the air. It had cooled off quite a bit overnight and the nearby houses to the south of my parents' apartment heat with coal. It was quite the flashback to remote cities in China. The scent was pretty persistent, and I had to try not to dwell on it too much.


During breakfast we heard music coming from south of the apartment. Upon looking out the window, we saw that the adjacent schoolyard had a large gathering of people. Given the time of year, we figured... could it be elementary graduation?

We tried out some of the playground equipment. This one we call "The Chokey."



The kids were all super cute and dressed up. The girls wore skirts and some had big pom-poms in their hair or wore what looked like aprons. A few grandparents walked around with traditional Kazakh dress.

Most people stood around in a big circle formation, with a few administrators standing at a table on the circumference. They would read out a child's name, and the kid would run across the circle to receive their certificate. 

Besides the effect of me wearing a bright orange jacket (most adults wore dark colors), we didn't receive many curious looks. This felt different from China, where--besides the international sections of Beijing or Shanghai--I most certainly would have been noticed and had photos taken. I imagine this is because of the high number of Russian descendants living here. I guess we fit in, which makes observing non-disturbed environments easier.





Holland practicing work-ups to rolling over.





Later, we went to a large indoor and outside bazaar. The indoor looked like a large hall with each shop a stand-alone glass case. Whitney tried on a few dresses behind a makeshift modesty curtain.

Of course baby clothes were the greatest attraction for us and we got a fab multi-colored dress for the babers.

Outside, rows of shipping containers comprised the shops and alleys. My mom intently searched for a new "man purse" to replace my REI fanny pack, but I only found a very sleek cap. My mom did happen to mention to shirt hawkers that I liked cat shirts, so we were haunted by two men who kept approaching us with shirts of different animal designs: Bears, unicorns, wolves, fabulous cats. It was hard, but somehow I didn't buy them all.


We found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant amid the outdoor shops and ordered Logmon (noodles), Plov (fried rice), and boiled dumpings. We even got extra Kazakh experience by eating horse meat!


When we returned home in the early evening, I spent time with Holland on her play mat. She fell asleep and I eventually succumbed to jet lag.

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