You Won't Believe KAZAKHSTAN Looks Like This! (First Impressions of Almaty)
we're beginning our adventures here in Kazakhstan a country that is rich with history culture and endless landscapes this has to be one of the most epic sculptures I ever seen we're starting in Almaty a city that blends Soviet-era architecture with modern vibes and surrounded by the breathtaking Tianshan Mountains wow that one is fully covered in snow still join us as we explore the city and get to know what life is like here in Kazakhstan doesn't this feel like Canada to you it does it feels like a beautiful summer day in Calgary actually but today we are actually in Almaty Kazakhstan we're going to go roam around the city I think we need to take the Metro though because we are living at this building right here which looks really old on the outside but inside is actually really cozy and across from it is already the Metro station just right there I usually don't like to take public transportation but I'm quite excited to take the metro here it's actually very convenient and it's really cool because this this is the one and only Metro in all of Kazakhstan so even the capital city here Astana doesn't have a metro system and there's only two Metro systems in the whole of Central Asia the other one is in Uzbekistan but it's quite small it's only 11 stations and the funny thing is it took them a long long time to build because I read online that this Metro actually the project began before the fall of the Soviet Union in like 1988 because they stopped having funds to build it so it took them 23 years after it started to actually open the first station the first line and now there are 11 stations but they're still building it like every couple years there's a new station that adds to the line which is pretty neat maybe that's one of the reasons I like it because it's small and simple and it's not crowded not much people using it to be empty right now yeah yours too so convenient see how quiet it is in here and above we didn't actually have to buy a token or use cash to buy any tickets because they have contactless payment so so we just tapped our credit card it's so easy and the fare is the same which is like I think it's 80 tenge or 100 tenge basically under a dollar can get you to any station and they're all the same price right yeah this is so nice and clean oh this is the Walking Street I can't pronounce this but it is a walking Street look at that oh okay so I wasn't even intending to come here even though I've seen this on some of people's itineraries but we somehow made it to this walking street it's called about The Arbat Walking Street or the Zhibek Zholy Walking Street which makes sense because that's exactly the stop we got off lots of cafes around here and you can see people selling their art yeah playing instrument this is a very clean and livable city yeah it's very beautiful and lots of public spaces for people to just sit and relax like look at look at that area over there with those chairs it will be fun when we have a house and we can buy a piece of art that we can hang on the wall and it reminds you of the destination that we have been to yeah I agree I think once we have that space it will be so much more fun when we travel to buy souvenirs cuz now we don't buy anything we don't buy souvenirs cuz there's nowhere to put it one day one day that one so beautiful that's very beautiful so beautiful yes where where would this be in place yeah the place that we have in Kazakhstan Lake Kolsay okay we're going there so we found this nice restaurant here on Arbat Street it is called restaurant Tirol it looks really nice it's humongous what I love about it is that it has picture menu oh actually it says right here it has a rich selection of dishes of Russian Kazak and European Cuisine I assume the the prices are more expensive because we're on Arbat Street yeah but it's still very reasonable I feel like so far Almaty is very affordable even though it is the most expensive city in Kazakhstan or maybe even in like Central Asia but for us we still find it very affordable compared to like North American prices this is like Bangkok prices yeah yeah what kind of tea is this this is Tashkent Tea smells so good it has lemon orange fresh mint and then a blend of green and black tea so Tashkent is actually the capital city of Uzbekistan but they don't drink this tea in Uzbekistan this is a drink that the Kazak people created here and called it Tashkent tea cuz Kazak people usually drink black tea but I think because they mix this like this blend of green tea which is popular in Uzbekistan and also the lemon is popular in Uzbekistan so they named this like Tashkent tea interesting but it smells so good Flora has been loving it here drinking tea yeah I love coffee but I also love tea and I didn't realize they have such a huge tea culture in this area of the world so I've been going crazy like going to supermarkets spending hours just trying to find different teas I want to try and yeah this is one of my new favourites oh it's sweet yeah oh yeah there's some lemon in there did I say that there was honey in there yeah there's some honey in there no I like it I like sweet right yeah and look at the cup even the cup is cute everything looks so cute everything looks beautiful around here that looks amazing oh it's bigger than the picture thank you wow look at this that is humongous yeah so I ordered a chicken kebab and it comes with this flat bread yeah and also this like salsa right almost looks like a salsa yeah like a sauce we were kind of worried that all we'd be eating is horse meat right yeah we haven't tried it yet no it's on the list to try I think eventually it will happen but right now chicken looks really good the sauce is so refreshing even the the pickles they're pickles or just cucumbers just fresh cucumbers so nice and the chicken is so tender I'll take the veggies but you can take the big plate you want the I want everything it was so delicious okay thank you we cleaned that plate up what is this so this is pancake stuffed with veal my feeling because of how it looks it is a Russian dish I like it it's just like minced meat minced veal and onions in like a little pancake almost like a crepe it's very good though real quick big thanks to our longtime partner Squarespace for sponsoring this video and for helping us keep the adventures going Squarespace is an all-in-one platform where you can easily put together a website for your blog or business and you can save a lot of time by starting with one of their award-winning templates a quick and easy way for you to add visuals to your website is to connect and sync your social media accounts they also have a Squarespace app that lets you manage your business on the go just head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com/floraandnote to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain now let's get back to the video we are now at the Ascension Cathedral which is a Russian Orthodox Cathedral it was built in like the early 1900s but because the um Soviet Union banned religion like the practice of religion it was abandoned for quite a few decades it's so grand it is so grand I've never seen a cathedral that looked like this oh and the interesting thing is I think you told me this it's a wooden Cathedral like everything it's supposed to be the largest wooden cathedral in the world look at all those pigeons on the tree can you check my head no you didn't get pooped on oh I feel it look oh yeah you got pooped on let's go let's go here well there are pigeons everywhere so many pigeons look at that oh I definitely got pooped on we should buy a lottery then oh my goodness but the pigeons are all here because they're selling pigeon food for you to feed the pigeons one of the most beautiful cathedrals I've seen I just love the contrast of the yellow the white the blue and yeah the colors red and the golden onions on the roof onions at the cross beautiful one thing I love about Kazakhstan is the amount of green space and public parks in the city and they are so well maintained so clean clean so beautiful and people are using them yeah cuz you know how sometimes parks can feel very sketchy like Central Park but here the parks feel very safe very open and they use the parks to display all the cultural and war statues and art do you want to look inside oh my goodness you think that's stone yeah black stone crazy well did do you notice that the faces of all of the soldiers here are different like their hats are different their faces are a little bit different because each face actually is supposed to represent a different Soviet Republic so it should be 15 different faces I mean I don't see 15 faces yeah well it's supposed to be like the 15 Soviet republics like the soldiers from all these places that fought for the Soviet Union in the world war that's kind of what this is dedicated to and it's not just this monument this little square here is dedicated to the soldiers who fought even there in the middle you see there's a a flame they call it the Eternal Flame to remember basically remember the people who have died for the wars so today we are at Shymbulak which is a famous ski resort here in Almaty we are about an hour's drive outside of the main city and it's not skiing time right now obviously it's summer but there's still a lot to do up on this mountain so we're going to take the gondola up and explore what is up there it's a beautiful day and the mountains look super clear yeah and was it hard to get the tickets no you just get here line up I got the return ticket from here up to the top station it's 5,000 tenge a person oh that's even cheaper than the one in town Kok Tobe yeah you see over there that's the famous skating ring it's the highest one in the world in altitude yay nice to meet you have a good day day that was a beautiful ride it felt like we are somewhere in Switzerland even though I have never been to Switzerland that's what I imagine it would look like oh wow the lineup for the second gondola here is quite long but you see this one it's those um what do you call like quad rides I think where it's exposed you're not inside looks so nice okay let's quickly eat something around here so we changed our minds we grabbed sandwiches instead because we're going to go picnic up there and we think we're going to take this one this chair lift instead of the other big one because there's less of a lineup and it still looks nice and it's open air we get to go on right away I'm so excited for this it's been a while alright here we go let's put this down this is such a beautiful ski resort that is amazing who would have thought Kazakhstan looks like this and look people just sitting there and picnicking that is so awesome we were actually planning a ski trip for this coming winter the funny thing is we never thought about Kazakhstan we thought about like Japan or Korea even some parts of China but mostly Japan but looking around around here they are very very beautiful what do you call like slopes but then when Note went online to kind of look at you know the chalet and what the prices are he said that they're already all booked out yeah fully booked from November to March yeah and the prices are so good it's like $70 per night yeah that is really good cuz we were looking at Japan it was like $300 a night maybe we need to plan for yeah maybe we need to plan for not the coming winter but the next winter we should do like a ski trip in Kazakhstan we're going down then we're going up hello hello this ride is actually longer than I thought it would be we could have ate our sandwiches already yeah I know I'm so hungry let's find an epic spot to look at the mountain I definitely enjoy the open air chair lift though it's just you feel part of the nature and it's not hot it feels so nice and you get to interact with people across from you like this hello maybe not that man he was the only one who didn't say hello I mean like this hello hello see oh get off on that side that side okay get off now even that was scary we got off too fast that's why it slowed down right here almost died that was fun though yeah that was really nice I think we should go up there somewhere and have our sandwiches yeah how do you how do you get up there I see people walking up there so there must be a trail here I actually can feel a little bit of the altitude change I think we are now over 2,000m and I got quite bad altitude sickness when I was over 3,000m a couple months ago in China so I'm a bit like more worried about it than Note so just walk slowly deep breaths I think it should be okay cuz at least this time I'm not sick last time I was sick so I think that's what made altitude sickness worse for me and how are you feeling you feeling okay I'm feeling fresh feeling great and look at all these wild flowers so beautiful yeah it's pretty beautiful that looks like an epic spot this is incredible hello Kazakhstan hello Kazakhstan your chicken sandwich thank you grilled chicken sandwich there's no better place to have lunch how's your sandwich very good the tomatoes are so good this makes it to one of my top life experiences I never imagined that Kazakhstan would be like this and also I just never imagined sitting on top of this beautiful mountain eating a sandwich like it's just so in Kazakhstan in Kazakhstan it's so peaceful it's so beautiful and I love that everything feels very like raw in nature it's not set up like not platforms for you to take photos and stuff we just hiked up this little mountain found a rock we liked and sat down it's the type of nature things I like to do
2024-09-02 06:24
