Kazakhstan -- We finally made it!

Here we are in Astana, Kazakhstan.  We had a guardian angel help us through check in and security at the Moscow Airport.  He was happy to practice his English and we were happy he showed up!!  And I'm happy to report that I did not get arrested for having my hair cutting scissors in my carry on plus they let me keep the scissors!

Here's a yurt under construction with a completed one behind it.  The city is preparing for an independence celebration.

This is the Han Shatir mall in the shape of a Kazak hat.  It has like 8 levels inside with a food court and the top layer is a water park with a roller coaster.

For all you Sponge Bob fans, there really is a Krusty Krabs!

This is the river that goes through the city.  We were walking home from church and noticed a big crowd getting some "beach" time.  It was a pretty warm day.  We're not sure which way the river flows.  There doesn't seem to be an uphill or a downhill for miles and miles.  We were told that whichever way the wind blows, that's the way it flows!  There's a lot of algae on the edges.  I will not be swimming in this water!

The name of this store is "Kamila"  which also happens to be my niece's name (well, Kamilah!)  One of our flight attendants on Air Astana was also named Kamila.  A very beautiful name!  The Kazak people have a stronger Asian influence than the Russians we saw in Moscow.  They are very polite, the young people will give up their seat on the bus for older people (especially older women like me!)

This little boy was filling up some water jugs and put them on his handlebars to take home.  He was a little too fast for me to get a good look at his face.  The children are darling here.  This is at our bus stop.  Many homes do not have running water, so they have this faucet where people can come for water to take home.

This is a view of our apartment building from the river walk.  There is a courtyard in the center of the buildings where the children love to play until all hours of the night!  We are on the 7th floor so luckily we get an elevator.  There's a law that if the building is higher than 4 floors, it has to have an elevator, so there are lots of shorter buildings around.  The colorful building in the front is a children's school.  The sign says "Funny School"