Our First Hockey Game

One of the perks that I get from being the coach of the NU women's basketball team is that the university sports center sometimes gets free tickets to sporting events in town.  I've been to a couple of the basketball games this year with some of my basketball players, for example.

This week, I was asked if my family wanted tickets to the hockey game.  I was happy to say yes to the tickets.  The team here - Barys (or snow leopard) - plays in the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League) with teams from Russia, other former Soviet States, and a couple of teams from Scandinavia. The team just moved (a few months ago) from their old arena on the other side of town to an arena near the other sports arenas - which is only about a mile from our apartment.  Last year we thought about going, but getting to and from the games was problematic.  Now that problem is solved.

I got the tickets on Monday afternoon for the game on Tuesday.  Tuesday the kids' school was cancelled (it was supposed to be the last day of the term) because of a blizzard that raged all day.  The wind and snow was still blowing when I came home from work in the late afternoon and we thought about not going, but decided that we would brave the weather instead.  I ordered two taxis to pick us up at 7:00.  We were taking three of the kids and Yulia's mom (so six of us) since Polina was sick with the flu.  When we went down, our taxi wasn't there.  It took until 7:30 for one of the taxis to show up.  By that time Babushka (Lyudmila, Yulia's mom) had given up on going, so the five of us piled into the taxi who drove us through the blizzard down the road a bit.

View of the blizzard from our window

We arrived at the game 10 minutes into the 1st period - and Baris was already up 2-0 over CSKA Moscow.  We had nice seats behind one of the goals high enough up that we could see the action on both sides.  There was also a very nice scoreboard and screen that showed replays, so we could get into the action.  The arena was only about 2/3 full - we think mostly because of the storm.

Our view of the rink from our seats

Selfie

The girls watching the game

I had never been to a live professional hockey game before (neither had anyone else in the family) and we really enjoyed it.  The game was intense - the final score was 4-3 for Astana.  We saw a fight right in front of where we were (in the game, on the ice) and quite a few power plays because of penalties.  The atmosphere was a lot of fun.

Barys is in blue, CSKA Moscow is in red

Fight

Another fight.

Fans would put up a giant banner every time after Barys scored

Standing ovation after a score

At the end of the game when the team won, lots of people through stuffed bears out onto the ice.  It was the first time that they had done something like that (the announcer said) and it was a lot of fun. Because of the traffic and storm, we decided to just walk home.  The wind had calmed down quite a bit, although it was still blowing.  The snow on the sidewalks had drifted up to four feet in some places.  Because of the way the weather had gone, though, much of the snow was crusted and we could walk along the top.  It took us about 35 minutes to walk home - and by the time we arrived we were plenty chilly.

Teddy bears on the ice and teams shaking hands

Cleaning up the bears after the game

The winners!

Snow Leopard Mascot 

We are really glad that we had the opportunity to go and watch the game.  We had so much fun that we are planning on making it a more regular part of our winter entertainment.

Movie Dates

One of the unforeseen benefits of knowing Russian and living in this part of the world is that we often get to see movies 2-3 weeks before they come out in the theaters in America. Today a movie starring Russell Crowe (it was also directed by him) and a Ukrainian-born actress and model Olga Kurylenko called “The Water Diviner” was released in the US. Spencer and I went to see it 3 weeks ago in the local movie theater at Keruen Mall. Of course we saw it in Russian but it was great! We absolutely loved the movie and would definitely recommend it though it is probably not for kids under 12 years old as there are a few pretty graphic war scenes.

A scene from "The Water Diviner"

It has become one of our favorite activities here in Astana. Usually once or twice a month (depending on if there is anything worth watching at the moment in the theaters) Spencer and I go on a movie date, and every other month or so we take our girls out to the movies and dinner. The kids have really picked up Russian lately and have been enjoying these family outings. 

A night view of Astana and the Keruen Mall where we go for our movie dates.

Spring Break Vacation to Thailand Part V

We spent Thursday just relaxing.   We slept in until we woke up, had a nice leisurely breakfast, and spent the afternoon at the pool.  In the evening we went down to the beach after dinner to watch the sunset.  The sunset was beautiful, and we had a lot of fun watching the crabs scurry around on the beach.

Sunset at the beach

Looking for more shells

We were trying to have a photo taken of just the two of us but Lexa jumped right in!

Sunset!

We saw hundreds of little crabs after the sun went down. This one was the biggest of them all.

The hotel was having a movie night at the pool.  We told the kids they could watch the movie.  It was "Guardians of the Galaxy" and so the girls weren't interested.  We let them watch "Brave" on the DVD player and television in their room instead.  While the girls were watching, Yulia and I went for a walk and to get ice cream.  One of the things that we loved about our vacation was that even though we were there as a family, it also felt like a romantic vacation for the two of us.

Watching the beginning of the movie outside by the pool

Pretty cool setup

Our main activity on Friday was to go to downtown Phuket.  Yulia had wanted to look around.  The girls were a little less enthusiastic about going, but were good sports.  We walked through the market and down a few streets.  We stopped at a 7/11 and bought some Slurpees for everyone.  It was much hotter in town away from the ocean, so it was nice.  We also found a second hand show store where Yulia found a gently used handbag that was just what she wanted to have for traveling.  We also stopped at a little mall where we found a few souvenirs and bought some fruit pastries for a snack later in the day.  We spent a few hours downtown and that was enough to get a bit of a feel for life and for the kids to see and smell what it is like in a developing country.

While waiting for our taxi to come and take us to Phuket City the twins found a nice sofa in the lobby to relax

And Nika and Lina found these two big chairs to do the same.

We first stop by a market and the smell was overwhelming! You see Lexa pinching her nose, we all felt the same!

A lot of stores in Phuket are open like this. It was kind of interesting.

On the streets of Phuket City

Enjoying our Slurpees.

Shrine. We saw them on just about every corner.

These bird cages with birds were everywhere! 

See those shoes outside of the door? We noticed that in a lot of places people would leave their shoes outside before going in. We noticed it at the cafes, photo studios, and hair salons.

Cowboy boots! In Thailand! What?!

We went to the pool in the late afternoon so the girls could have one last chance to swim.  While we were there the staff invited the children over to fish in a little pond.   The girls all tried, but only Sophie and Lexa caught fish.  Sophie caught the biggest fish, and caught it twice.  I told Nika and Lina that they might have my luck as a fisherman (bad) and that the twins might be more like their Uncle Ben, who is a gifted fisherman.

Nice coconut! We fell in love with all of the fruit in Phuket, most of which we've never seen before.

Fishing at the pond

Lexa caught a fish!

Sophie caught this big baby! And two minutes after releasing it back into the pond she caught it again!

After getting cleaned up and changing we went to the beach to watch the sunset one last time in Thailand.  We had fun watching the crabs scurry again.  We stopped by the cafe where we ate breakfast to see about dinner.  It was a buffet that cost 1800 Baht each (about 60 dollars) each.  That was what we were paying for all of us for each breakfast and was a bit steeper than we wanted to pay.  We went to the Thai Express for one last meal (and it cost us just under 1600 Baht for ALL of us).

Last time at the beach looking at all of the little crabs running under our feet.

Looking at sunset

Last time with the waves.

One observation that we made about restaurants in Thailand was that they brought food whenever it was ready.  This was okay when it all came relatively fast but was a bit strange when we would get one dish for one person and then wait 10 or fifteen minutes for the next thing to come.  We like the American way of getting things all at the same time (or appetizers first, then main courses).  On Friday night my dish came last - after the girls had all finished their dinner for 10 or fifteen minutes.  We ended up sending the girls home to get ready for bed while we waited for my plate to come and to pay the bill.

Here is to show that the two of us are enjoying the food and the rest are still waiting. Twenty minutes later four of us were almost done with our dinner, and two were still waiting. Forty five minutes later five of us were completely done, and one still hasn't gotten his food! Crazy!

****

Saturday morning we were up early - 4:45.  We dressed, ate a quick snack, and went to meet our taxi.  We left for the airport at 5:15.  Our flight left Phuket at 7:30.  We spent a full day traveling.  Bangkok was busy - we had to get from one side of the airport to the other, leave the terminal, check in, go back through passport control area, go through security, and get to our gate within an hour and a half.  We made it to the gate just as boarding began.

Air Astana is awesome! Look at the leg room this tall fella has on our last flight from Almaty to Astana!

We ended up flying back from Thailand with a group of single professors from my school who had also done vacations in Thailand.  One of my students was on the flight from Almaty to Astana (one had been on the flight out last week as well).  Almaty was plus 13 degrees Celsius.  Arriving in Astana was a return to winter.  It was -9 Celcius when we landed and it got down to -20 later in the night.

Hello, home! Lots of snow and -20C!

We arrived home, got the kids in bed, picked up Yuki from our friends, the Petersons, and got back to life.

****

We had a wonderful time.  This was the first time we have ever taken this kind of vacation and it was quite nice.  We reflected that it was quite a privilege to be able to travel so far from home just to experience a different place and culture for a week.  We really felt blessed.  Our trip to Thailand was definitely a week that we will remember for a long time.

A trip to Aquarium

Aquarium "Duman" in the summer

Back at the beginning of February  when the weather was a bit dreary and the kids didn't get to go out to play in the snow much because it was either really cold or really windy, or both, we decided to take them to a local aquarium for some entertainment. We've heard that it was relatively small but had a good selection of fish. It was actually a good size aquarium in my opinion, probably not as big as Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas but of the same level. The Aquarium is located in the entertainment center “Duman” and is the only aquarium in the world that is located over 3,000 km away from the ocean. They have more than 2,000 of sea inhabitants from different parts of the world.

One thing that I haven’t encountered anywhere else is the way they do the ticketing. They issue you a sort of credit card on which they put the money for your pass.  And then when you go in you have to swipe that card which will open the gate and let you in. Interesting!

Sophie and Lina looking at some fish

Spencer, Nika, and Lexa 

Room with the fish of Kazakhstan

Nice crew!

We really liked the aquarium. They had a nice selection of fish found in the rivers of Kazakhstan along with a lot of tropical fish, and even an alligator (maybe it was a crocodile, I do not remember). Then they had a long and winding tunnel with sharks and sea turtles and other creatures. It was pretty impressive.

This poor alligator didn't have much space at all.

A tank with piranhas 

Sharks or catfish?

Going through the tunnel.

Cute clown fish!

The sea turtles were big!

At the far end of the aquarium they had a viewing room where you can watch the feeding of the sharks. When we were there they already fed them for the day, so we didn't get to see it but the kids liked climbing up the stairs to the second story of the viewing area.

The shark feeding viewing area.

When we were going back through the tunnel again, we saw a mermaid swimming with the turtles!

The little mermaid!

Doesn't it look like I am the only one who is having fun?! For the record, everybody had fun, just not everybody had fun posing for the pictures!

It was a nice aquarium, not too small with a lot of things to see and not too big so the little kids don’t get tired. We had a great time! And of course our kids couldn't pass this great opportunity for goofing around! 

Lina and Lexa 

Nika looks way too happy considering the situation

Poor shark will have some digestive problems!