Trip to Kok Tobe.

Today we visited an area above Almaty called Kok Tobe. I’m sure Ken will be posting the same thing so I’ll keep this short. Liza stayed at the apt. with Cal so that Ken, the kids and I could have a day out together. We had a great time.

Kok Tobe is only reachable via a ski lift cable car kind of like the one in Gatlinburg, TN. We were a little nervous but decided to just go for it. The area at the top of the lift is beautiful. The air is fresh, there are limited smoking areas and no litter. You can tell this is an area the city takes a lot of pride in.

Kok Tobe is the Almaty version of Rock City. The playground was awesome. The kids had a blast. We also ate lunch at a great restaurant. Overall we had a great day.

On a down note, we went by the offices of our facilitators today. There is pretty much no chance we will get to come home any earlier than anticipated. There had been some talk in the beginning that we might get out a little early. As it is, we won’t visit the U.S. Embassy until Friday 11/24 and fly out on the 25th. This was the original itinerary but I had held out hope that we would get out sooner. Oh well. We can officially say we have been here 1/3 of the time. It has gone by fast.

Tomorrow is Ken’s birthday. Don’t know exactly what we are going to do yet. Liza has offered to stay with the kids so that he and I can go out to dinner. There is a traditional Kazak restaurant near our apt. where they serve traditional Kazak food and there is traditional Kazak entertainment. This is something we wouldn’t expect the kids would enjoy so we may try it out.

Enjoy the pictures.

Alison