If at first you don't succeed

This is Sammy jumping again. The first attempt is not so good but the second attempt is much better. I particularly like (if you listen carefully) how Sammy says 'Oh dear' after she falls off. I think she may have said 'fall' also, but that could just be creative listening on my part.

Sammy the little jumper

Sammy has a new favourite passtime. Jumping! She will be 2 in July and she is a little more adventurous than we thought she'd be at this age. Fortunately she has a brother who is more than happy to encourage her new found ability.

Living in Kazakhstan: Things I like - Making Pizza

Jack is my special helper when we cook and he asked whether he could put on the salami and pineapple on our pizza. I felt a little sick eating it and thinking of how he coughed, wiped his nose and licked his fingers while making it!

Living in Kazakhstan: Things I like - Shashlik and Plov

Eating out is very cheap here and at times we wonder why we would bother to cook. The meal pictured cost us $8 and it was enough food and drink for all of us.

Shashlik is like a meat kebab on a stick. So far we have only eaten lamb shashlik. It is cooked on an outdoor bbq, often in the street and it smells and tastes great. I particularly like it with some bread and raw onion. Depending on where you get it you can pay anywhere from about 90c per kebab stick to $1.20. Over here they love their fat, so half of it is meat and half fat. The more you pay the better quality the meat. We have a shashlik restaurant downstairs from our apartment and there is another one around the corner.

Plov is Sammy's favourite food. It is rice and carrot cooked in oil (healthy as!) with roast lamb added at the end. For $5 we can feed our family at lunch time. Sammy loves eating it with her hands (the traditional way to eat it) and generally eats 1/3 and drops 2/3 on the floor.

On Saturday we also found a kebab shop across the road and the kebabs were great. They are quite similar to the kebabs you can buy in Aus but the extras they add are quite different. I had my choice of lamb or chicken, gerkins, grated carrot, corn, chips (fries), raw onion and tomato. There was no cheese or tabouleh in sight. The sauce choices were mayonaise and ketchup. For $7.50 we had lunch.

Living in Kazakhstan: Things I like - Public Transport

(Photo taken by Jack from his bedroom window)

Even though there is no time table and chaos generally reigns, the public transport in Shymkent makes Newcastle look like a bit of a joke. The buses start at about 6.30 am and go until maybe 9pm. It costs you 35c to get on a regular bus and 40c to catch a Mashootka (pictured). We have a bus stop across the road and one around the corner. There are 3 buses we can catch from our bus stop, which take us from just around the corner to our work. The Mashootka is fast and has about 10 seats. You don't need to be at a bus stop for it to pick you up, but there's no guarantee it will stop for you. If the seats are full they continue to pick up passengers and often it gets very cozy. The most I've seen in the back is about 18 people.

Living in Kazakhstan: Things I like - Bread

(Photo taken by Jack - our 3 year old boy)

One of the best things about living in Kazakhstan is the bread. I'm not sure why we don't have this stuff in Australia. It would be such a hit. It is available everywhere, it is baked fresh daily and it costs 30c a loaf.
(The bread pictured is actually the larger loaf, which sells for 50c.)