Late again :D But at least I'm doing it. Now I have to remember to remind Pavlína to do hers.
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They paint the trees here white from the ground to about... a metre or so up. No one seems to know why, but the general thought is that it is to prevent the insects from destroying the trees, but this doesn't make so much sense to me. They only paint the trees that are along the road, and they look like they've been painted well after they achieve maturity. Perhaps its so that they look uniform when driving by? It's a curiosity, for sure.
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Haven't potty-trained your toddler yet? No problem! If you're out in public and your little one has to pee, just pull down their pants, lift up their legs so their bottom is at the bottom, and let it flow. It seems much more open to natural functions of kids here than in the West. For better or for worse.
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Apparently there is a theatre in Almaty that regularly, once a week, shows movies in English. We caught The Lady with Michelle Yeoh last week. Good news: it was in English. Bad news: 30% (or more) was in Burmese with Russian subtitles. It was good, but I feel like I was missing some key parts spoken in Burmese. Hopefully we can find more movies, but I was glad to catch this one while it was in town for a few days, as I doubt it even got a wide release back home.
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I was finally able to cook for the first time last week, after two weeks here. It's a small 'kitchen' with few facilities, but it was nice to cook some pasta, even if the sauce wasn't so great. I hope we'll be able to expand our cooking area so I can make some curry and other great things. Boiling pasta in a frying pan is not the most effective way.
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Last weekend we went up to Medeo, the highest skating rink in the world, to see the view. You cannot see Almaty from up there, but the view of the mountains is quite spectacular. Up there, the air isn't so smoggy, and it was refreshing. There were people riding horses, and one man even had a trained eagle with him. It was pretty high up, but you can go even more past the dam to a ski resort that is also open in the summer.
For reference, here are some altitude (metres above sea level) comparisons of some places I've been.
4,979 m - Talgar Peak, the highest mountain in the Trans-Ili Alatau range, about 40 km from downtown
2,451 m - Sulphur Mountain, Banff (family vacation, summer 1997), about 125 km from Calgary
1,984 m - Athabasca Glacier, Columbia Icefield (lower limit)
1,835 m - Medeo dam, approximately (where we were)
1,750 m - Lake Louise (shoreline)
1,691 m - Medeo skating rink
1,304 m - Mount Cindrel, Cisnădie, Romania (winter hiking, New Year's 2011)
1,049 m - Fiesch, Switzerland (Do It! 2010)
1,048 m - Calgary
500 m - Almaty (lowest point)
76 m - Toronto
6 m - Montreal (lowest point)
In short, I thought that this weekend was the highest I'd ever been on Earth (flying excluded, naturally), but it appears that my trip up Sulphur Mountain when I was a kid is still the highest. Maybe I'll beat it by going to Shymbulak, the ski resort south of Almaty, at an altitude of 2260 to 3200 depending on which lift you take, or maybe at a ski resort in Kyrgyzstan that my team is considering going to this winter.
The mountains here are quite close though, so even on a smoggy day, they still provide quite an impressive view.
…
They paint the trees here white from the ground to about... a metre or so up. No one seems to know why, but the general thought is that it is to prevent the insects from destroying the trees, but this doesn't make so much sense to me. They only paint the trees that are along the road, and they look like they've been painted well after they achieve maturity. Perhaps its so that they look uniform when driving by? It's a curiosity, for sure.
…
Haven't potty-trained your toddler yet? No problem! If you're out in public and your little one has to pee, just pull down their pants, lift up their legs so their bottom is at the bottom, and let it flow. It seems much more open to natural functions of kids here than in the West. For better or for worse.
…
Apparently there is a theatre in Almaty that regularly, once a week, shows movies in English. We caught The Lady with Michelle Yeoh last week. Good news: it was in English. Bad news: 30% (or more) was in Burmese with Russian subtitles. It was good, but I feel like I was missing some key parts spoken in Burmese. Hopefully we can find more movies, but I was glad to catch this one while it was in town for a few days, as I doubt it even got a wide release back home.
…
I was finally able to cook for the first time last week, after two weeks here. It's a small 'kitchen' with few facilities, but it was nice to cook some pasta, even if the sauce wasn't so great. I hope we'll be able to expand our cooking area so I can make some curry and other great things. Boiling pasta in a frying pan is not the most effective way.
…
Last weekend we went up to Medeo, the highest skating rink in the world, to see the view. You cannot see Almaty from up there, but the view of the mountains is quite spectacular. Up there, the air isn't so smoggy, and it was refreshing. There were people riding horses, and one man even had a trained eagle with him. It was pretty high up, but you can go even more past the dam to a ski resort that is also open in the summer.
For reference, here are some altitude (metres above sea level) comparisons of some places I've been.
4,979 m - Talgar Peak, the highest mountain in the Trans-Ili Alatau range, about 40 km from downtown
2,451 m - Sulphur Mountain, Banff (family vacation, summer 1997), about 125 km from Calgary
1,984 m - Athabasca Glacier, Columbia Icefield (lower limit)
1,835 m - Medeo dam, approximately (where we were)
1,750 m - Lake Louise (shoreline)
1,691 m - Medeo skating rink
1,304 m - Mount Cindrel, Cisnădie, Romania (winter hiking, New Year's 2011)
1,049 m - Fiesch, Switzerland (Do It! 2010)
1,048 m - Calgary
500 m - Almaty (lowest point)
76 m - Toronto
6 m - Montreal (lowest point)
In short, I thought that this weekend was the highest I'd ever been on Earth (flying excluded, naturally), but it appears that my trip up Sulphur Mountain when I was a kid is still the highest. Maybe I'll beat it by going to Shymbulak, the ski resort south of Almaty, at an altitude of 2260 to 3200 depending on which lift you take, or maybe at a ski resort in Kyrgyzstan that my team is considering going to this winter.
The mountains here are quite close though, so even on a smoggy day, they still provide quite an impressive view.
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