Spring Break 2017 - Trip to India Part I - Delhi

For spring break this year we decided to go to India.  But not to the beach as we have the past two years in Thailand and Sri Lanka.  We decided to go and visit the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur).  There were a few reasons for this, but the main one was that some new friends from the Embassy just finished a tour in Delhi and they said good things.  Yulia,  as always, did all of the planning and booking and I was along for the ride.  In the next few days we'll put up posts about the different things that we did, but before that, I'll give a bit of an overview of the entire trip.

Overall the trip was a week, although we were in India really for six days.  Our flight left Astana for Almaty on Friday night at 10:30.  Once in Almaty we had to wait until 5:30 in the morning to check in for our flight to Delhi which left at 8:30.  We arrived in Delhi on Saturday morning at around 11:45 local time (the time in India is a half hour behind Kazakhstan - which was weird).  We left Delhi on a flight that left at 12:30 on Friday (March 24) and we arrived at the airport in Astana at about 10:30 p.m.  In between, we drove from Delhi to Agra to Jaipur and back to Delhi and saw a lot of interesting things, poverty, and farmland.  We ate all Indian food while we were there and no one got any intestinal problems, so we were ahead of the curve there.  Now on to the events of our first day.

At Astana Airport waiting for our flight to Almaty. 

Our flight from Almaty to Delhi was in the morning so we had to spend the night at the airport. The kids managed to fall asleep though.

A beautiful view while flying over Kyrgyzstan

After we got through passport control and customs we met our driver who took us to our hotel.  The initial drive through Delhi was a bit shocking for me - even though I've been in some hard places (specifically Iraq in 2003-04), the poverty of people on the streets (not everywhere, but persistent) was hard to witness.  Traffic was crazy, and when we got to our first hotel - it was the wrong place: it was owned by the same company, but a different address.  It was close, so we were settled in quite quickly.  Yulia settled things with the car company we had hired to drive us on our journey and we settled in with the kids.  We were traveling with some friends from church in Astana, so we had 9 of us - me, two women, two teenage girls, and my four daughters.... I think we were quite a sight during the whole trip!

We had a little snack at the hotel kitchen, and then our driver picked us up and took us to Humayun's tomb.  It was the tomb of the Mughal emperor Humayun and was built in the late 16th century by his wife.  It is a beautiful building and is very similar to the Taj Mahal in its design - just different stones.  The whole complex was very nice and peaceful.  It is a UNESCO heritage site and had a small fee for adults to attend (children under fifteen are free). There were a lot of large birds flying around and we saw some parrots and other smaller birds as well.

Gateway to  Araba Sarai

These trees are very interesting and they are everywhere in India. Look at that trunk!

About to walk through the gateway into Araba Sarai, south to the pathway towards Humayun's Tomb

Char Bagh (Four Gardens), a Persian-style garden with quadrilateral layout and was the first of its kind in the South Asia region in such a scale.

Humayun's Tomb

A view of Char Bagh gardens from the Humayun's Tomb

Humayun's Tomb

Cenotaphs of Hamida Banu Begum, a wife of Emperor Humayun , and other royalty

More graves right outside of the Humayun's Tomb

Persian-style gardens. Very peaceful.

These steps led from the tomb down to the gardens. Very, very steep.

Isa Khan Niyazi's Tomb, dating 1547. Isa Khan Niyazi was an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suri's court of the Sury dynasty, who fought against the Mughals.

Resting on the steps of Isa Khan Niyazi's Tomb

The details on the arches are amazing!

I guess it was so peaceful there that the girls decided to do some meditation, or so they thought.

From Humayun's tomb, we went to the India gate.  It was much more crowded (no admission fee) and had a lot of pushy street vendors.  We didn't stay there for too long.  On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a little restaurant and had dinner.  Our first day in India was in the books!

At the Indian Gate, New Delhi

The guards at the eternal flame at the Indian Gate

This was the park across from the Indian Gate and like many parks we've seen in Delhi it was beautiful, peaceful, and fenced off from people.

View of the gate with all the vendors in the foreground. 

The restaurant our driver took us in for dinner was very small (it is exactly what you see: the picture is taking from one side of the room pointing to the other) and from the outside looked like a shack (inside too) but the food was delicious.

The kids fell in love with Indian bread called naan.

Our Changing Neighborhood: The opening of Mega Silkway

When we moved into our apartment on the campus at Nazarbayev University 2.5 years ago, we were living in the middle of nowhere.  The nearest stores were downtown, or at least four bus stops and a long walk. However, the plan was to build up around the university - and one of the main building projects is the expo plaza which is being built directly to the East of campus.

March 2015: nothing is out there except a bunch of cranes

East of NU campus. Nothing is out there either!

In addition to the expo, there is a great deal of other development going on - including large numbers of apartment buildings, and a new mall.  The new Mall is a "Mega" a chain mall that has a number of locations in Kazakhstan.  This mall is called the Mega Silkway and is the largest retail establishment in Central Asia.  It is huge.

March 2016 - the skeleton of the new Mega Mall

And a bunch of apartment buildings growing like mushrooms after rain.

What is amazing, is that the entire building has been built since we arrived.  In fact, the fencing was around the project when we arrived, but there was no visible construction until we returned from our first leave home in July 2015.

May 2016 - it is not just a skeleton anymore!

And the apartment buildings look like they are almost ready!

The ball in the center of the picture is the main Expo building.

The outside of the building has been looking done since late fall (October or so) and we heard a number of rumors about when the mall would open.  One rumor was that it would open in December, but that date came and went [1].  The last few weeks, activity has been even higher.  We heard another rumor that it would open on 6 March, and Yulia looked it up online and found that it would have its technical opening on 6 March with a Grand opening around 23 March.

February 2017 - the first fence came down.

And a week later the second fence came down. The funny thing is that they planted the trees upfront before they even leveled the ground!

Monday I had a faculty meeting, and afterward, we walked across the street to see the mall.  The food court was still mostly not open, but we bought some Asian food from a little place - one of three open fast food places.  I called Yulia and she couldn't wait to see it, so we walked over with the twins and met Nika and Lina on their way home from guitar lessons.  One of the features is a trampoline park that also has climbing walls and other activities.  We signed the kids up to jump for half an hour.  (it's about $6.00 for half an hour - so pricey here - but the kids had a great time and were exhausted.  The owner and founder is an American kid (about 30 or so) who grew up in one of the cities in the West.  His dad worked for an oil company there.

March 6 2017 - the Mall is opened to public!

The kids had a blast at Kango. The guys in yellow are professional gymnasts and circus acrobats working on the Kango team.

Lexa is trying the rings

The guys from the team were showing to our kids how to do some tricks.

Rock climbing area

Food court: really bright and happy!

Love these fountains. They change color every 20 seconds or so.

Kids relaxing in "flower" chairs

Assalting a poor lego man outside of their favorite store in town.

At the end of the day they got pin wheels which is a Mega's logo.

The best thing about the technical opening is that the grocery store - Ramstor, a Turkish chain - was opened.  Now we have a grocery store (besides our little mini-market on campus) that is within walking distance, which is tremendous.

Wednesday was the 8th of March - International Women's Day - and so school was out.  I worked in the morning and Yulia gave the kids a light day of school, and then we went back to the mall.  We bought the kids tickets to see the movie "Sing!" and some slushies to each while they watched.  Yulia and I ate lunch to celebrate the day and our anniversary (March 12th).  We ate at the Korea House Restaurant.  It is pricier than most places here, but the food we had was excellent and the atmosphere was amazing.

While the kids are at the movies, we are on a date at the Korean House

We also bought tickets to the Expo for August when we are back from our vacation in Utah and my Mom and Yulia's mom will be here visiting.

The main Expo building, view from Mega Mall

The mall is still not fully functional, but it is mostly functional, and a tremendous boost to our quality of life.  We are no longer at the edge of nowhere.  Soon we will be in the middle of everything.

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[1] There was a fun article in the local news in December that the Mall was "completely launched" in December. We laughed because they had put up vinyl signs for the main stores on the main sign for a few days and then they had disappeared.  Basically they put together a photo op in December and called it "fully launched."  It only took another 3 months to get it partially off the ground.  By May all of the tenants should be online.

Valentine's Day 2017

Valentine's Day is an interesting holiday for our family.  The 8th of March is the bigger holiday and it comes right before our wedding anniversary.  There are a lot of expectations for thoughtful gifts over a very short period of time.

This year I came through on Valentine's Day okay.  I bought some chocolates for the girls and Yulia, and made a nice card for Yulia as well.  I had those out on the table for when the girls woke up.

I invited Yulia to eat lunch with me at the La Tartine cafe at the university.  It's pricier than the cafeteria where I eat lunch most days, but they have some nice food and a nice atmosphere.  She came and met me at noon after I taught class and conducted office hours.  We had a nice meal. I had gotten an email from the choir that they were conducting an impromptu concert in the atrium at 1:00 p.m. so I took Yulia there on her way back to the house.

The first group starting.  Not much of a crowd yet.

The choir had three groups of students who each sang 3 different songs.  They did a good job of singing, as always, and we had a fun time with the crowd admiring them.

Yulia and I taking a selfie to prove we belong! :)

More and more people gathered to watch.

For dinner Yulia made a lovely meal of stuffed peppers.  We ended the day by watching an episode of Chuck (the show our family is watching together a few episodes a week).  All in all it was a lovely day, and a reminder that there is usually something nice happening in Astana if you just look for it.

Stevie Wonder; I just Called to Say I Love You

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The accoustics weren't the best, but up close it sounded nice.