A very sad day indeed leaving Astana. Our lovely driver took us past the Palace of Peace the big pyramid in Astana which at night would have been changing in bright colours but unfortunately was a bit too far to walk at 10pm, we happy snapped and jumped back into the car to the airport. We trudged around souvenir shops on blistered toes, Aimee being the worst off "you're running again!!" as in slightly faster that strolling.
We found a little place to have brunch burgers and grilled vegetables...much needed and jumped back on the plane. I am now apparently a Kazakh citizen as I bought a beautiful soft leather passport cover for 1500Tenge which says 'Kazakhstan passport' on the front.
We arrived back in the blistering heat of Almaty to a balmy 33 degrees no humidity, Aussie summer style. Got back to our little Turkistan hotel and found alas the air conditioner did not work..........it stared at us teasingly all afternoon and all night. On a happier note the hot water worked this time around however the taps were backwards and I with my godzilla like strength kept flipping the stupid faucet head off the tap every time I used it.
We walked down to 'TsUm' an out of nowhere shopping centre with a large selection of souvenir shops (cheers guide book!) found a Kazakhstan shirt similar to Aimee's that I had regretted not buying in Kok-Tobe and a Kazakh camel hair hat with cotton on the inside and beautiful embroidery perfect for winter. We went back to the room did some touristy happy snaps in our three matching t-shirts on the balcony and had our last dinner in Kazakhstan a Doner kebab and hot corn from the lovely street vendors washed down with some ice tea...YUMMY!
Aimee and I people watched from the balcony for a while and a lovely girl in a white dress walked past looked up and smiled. Aimee waved back and a little boy she was with maybe 3 years old with his Ben10 hat on intrigued by what the girl was doing looked up and waved, he continued waving and we waved back to this gorgeous little boy all dressed up in white. When they were nearly out of sight he turned around and blew a kiss, to which of course we returned, he smiled and proceeded to nearly trip himself over, the girl waved again and they disappeared around the corner. Just a really beautiful moment that Aimee and I will cherish forever. I love it here.
After that things went a little sour across the road, a bit of local drama with some official and his group of friends who did not appreciate the non-legitimate street vendors. I'll leave it at that as it was not pretty and really not something to blog about, let's just say everyone in our building was looking as was half the locals around the area.
Packing was a bit more difficult today.....I don't want to leave this country :'(
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