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Day 0 and 1

     We kicked off our journey meeting up at LAX, ready for our 13 hour flight to our 6 and a half hour layover in Istanbul. Excitement filled the air. Once we arrived in Istanbul, we enjoyed some Turkish food and played some games to get to know each other. After getting some time to explore the airport, we boarded our flight to Almaty. 


    Despite not sleeping enough, it was suddenly 9:00 am, leaving a full day ahead of us in Kazakhstan. We grabbed a quick lunch and the bravest of us tried horse meat sandwiches. After lunch, we managed to catch the end of the Nowruz celebrations in the city. Justin and Jerry arm wrestled some locals and lost terribly while Max and Lauren went about holding an eagle and Celine tried archery. We got dinner at a Georgian restaurant where we enjoyed some Khinkali and Tarhun. Those of us who didn't already fall asleep at the restaurant got the much needed rest after checking into our hotel, thus concluding our first experience in Kazakhstan. 


   

  We started our first full day in Almaty with a good breakfast at the hotel. We visited a archeology bone lab studying the history of a major city along the Chinese boarder that was a hub along the Silk Road. We got to meet the experts running the lab and learned how they survey the land and analyze the skeletons and artifacts on the dig site. We learned how the city was shared by Christians and Muslims alike. For lunch, we went to a Uyghur neighborhood and had Lagman, a traditional Uyghur noodle dish. Later, we met with a Uyghur individual who taught us about their life and experiences. One emphasis of the discussion was about the unique aspect of Uyghur culture where Uyghur communities self-elect an individual to lead the community. We got to try a Kazakh tea with milk as well. We finished off our first full day with a quick dinner across the street from our hotel with both horse and pepperoni pizzas.


We’ve already experienced so much of the culture, despite us being in the country for less than two days. It has also been tremendously helpful to have two Russian speakers, Daniel and Max I, to help lower the language barrier to better experience the people and culture. We’re excited to continue exploring, as our journey is just beginning.

Yours truly,

Max Ismagilov, Justin Lee, and Jerry Fu


    



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