Day 3 - Being Tourist

The plan for today was to have a bit of a rest after a couple of hard days and to be a tourist in Astana. Eamonn and Patrick were going to have a lie in, but I was awake early (7am) so decided to try and sort out buying some tiny (0.01μF) capacitors. This was a late addition to my list (so my fault not bought yet), and is for a final 'fun' challenge. I knew the electronics shop they visited for other capacitors using goggle maps I got a taxi up to the shop. The location was a bit outside the main tourist areas we've been used to, and was interesting to see what I guess is more 'standard' apartment buildings (interestingly I'm yet to see a house, I'm not sure they exist here). The area was a collection of shops/market stools, but while I found some signs for 'Delta', I couldn't locate it, one shop had some massive capacitors but not the tiny ones I needed. Someone in a shop I think asked if they can help me, so I showed them a picture of the Kazak/Russian sign for Delta, and they took me back to their shop and showed me a pre-made card that I couldn't read (and google translate wouldn't identify the picture without internet - we were in the basement). From a picture and with internet back I discovered that it was a note saying that the shop had moved! What we've learnt in Kazakhstan is that google maps is not widely used, instead '2GIS' is the main map app. Unfortunately, we can't install it, as our Google Play region doesn't allow it, but we can access the web version. So another taxi later I got to the shop and they didn't have any (sad face). On the return though I found the Kazakhstan equivalent of amazon, and have managed to order them, and they should arrive on-time.

In the above you probably notice that I took a lot of taxis. We've been setup on the 'Yandex' app which is the local equivalent of Uber. Each taxi ride seems to take £2-£3 so its very cheap! So this is our main mode of transport while we're here (particularly as the University campus is a 50 min walk from our apartments). In one of the taxi's I met a very enthusiastic 23 year old driver who wanted to trial his limited English, I'm not sure he understood most of my replies, but we did discuss a range of topics from football, to marital status, etc...

In the afternoon we decided to go on a walk to see the main attractions around the President's Palace/gardens. It was a barmy -25C, but luckily no wind, so didn't feel too bad. Our first stop was the Baiterek Tower, which is a national monument commemorating the founding of Astana/Kazakhstan. We went up to the viewing platform at the top.

We then walked down to the river which apparently is quite wide and shallow, so completely freezes over in the winter. We were told last week there were bannana boats pulled by snow-mobiles that kids were riding on, and other attractions. Unfortunately, we didn't see any sort of those activities (they were possibly linked to the national holiday last week), but we did see someone ice fishing, and we got to stand on the ice!

After this we headed to get a beer and some food. We found a microbrewery that had a very cool looking grill that cooked steaks (and other meats/fish). Both were really nice, but my personal highlight was they had a table football table! I used to play probably (too much) at Uni, and Cardiff doesn't have many tables. So we had a few games, before leaving to pick a few things up from the supermarket, and then heading back to the apartments.

The table football table in the microbrewery we visited.

Day 2 - A Song of Ice and Fire

Today was all about trying to get everything we need to get ready for the course starting on Monday. The course is an experimental based one, where students will learn based on doing practicals and performing the analysis of the data. This obviously presents some challenges, as we need to have a range of equipment ready for the students to use. We've purchased some really cool devices (iOLab's) that have a huge range of sensors on-board, and can record data on a connected computer. However, we also required several extra items, to create some really cool experiments. This has been quite a cause for concern over the last couple months, as I guess due to the challenges of starting a new university (or otherwise), purchase of the items has been left quite late (at least compared to my try to be uber-organised self). After taking stock on Thursday of what we had, yesterday at least one of the staff members went shopping for us to get the remaining items - and we now have almost everything we need! (two items will be here, before we need them next week, and one item we can't get would have been useful but we can work around it). The delay did mean that at about 4:30-5pm we had to quickly assemble 65 experimental packs, but we are now ready to go for Monday! (special thanks to Mark, a visiting IT guy that helped us!)

During the day I also was invited to attend a meeting on Psychological First Aid. I found it very reassuring that it is taken as seriously (if not more so) here as it is in the UK. What I've also taken away from the last two days is that the students here seem to be really well supported, including an on-site doctor and psychologist. The staff also seem quite connected to the students. This I think is probably due to there only currently being ~300 students, as this year we only have foundation/preliminary year students. Hopefully though this ethos continues as the University grows when the proper undergraduate courses start next (academic) year.

As we were packing the boxes until ~7pm, the temperature outside had dropped to -32C! (this is definitely a new record for me!). As we wanted to visit the supermarket, we decided to go to the big shopping centre (which has a large supermarket in the basement), but a food court at the top. The building is about a 15min walk from the campus. Here's us at the start of our walk:

Here's us at the beginning of the walk. Patrick in-particular wanted to look brave for the picture, while I just look like I'm about to face a blizzard!

While, I had my doubts, I have to say the Coat, and Boots provided by the University seem to be doing a very good job. However, all three us are very much of the opinion that thermals are a must when its -32C outside! . We each had purchased our own thermals as the University doesn't provide them, which we'll definitely be campaigning about when we get back (for full transparency the argument is that we would be taking taxi's everywhere so don't need to walk outside, the taxi's though sometimes park a little way or move around so its not always straightforward). In the photo I look particularly out of place with my balaclava and googles, when the locals seem to have some natural resistance, but I decided I decided I didn't mind looking out of place for a warm face! This was the photo towards the end of the walk:

At the end of our walk, the -32C was definitely causing some glasses issues.

As you can see Patrick's glasses are a bit of a challenge, having frozen over, also some of our outer layers were starting to freeze, but I think we were mostly all warm underneath (I think Eamonn's legs were a bit cold, as he didn't want to put thermal leggings on). The shopping centre is a cool building designed by Norman Foster to represent (I think) a Yurt, and made with some cool flexible insulating material. We found food and the supermarket, and followed it by a late-night trip to a pub/bar by our hotel.

The Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center, still with Christmas tree.

Finally, we decided to add a new feature to the blog -- Muppet of the Day! (I think maybe it should be muppet of 'this' day, as its likely to be a sporadic feature). Before I go on, I want to add a disclaimer that this is done with discussion/agreement with both Patrick and Eamonn who are both happy to be featured - although there maybe a condition that we all have to win it at some point in the next two weeks. So without further ado, today's muppet of the day is ... Eamonn!

So what did he do to win this prestigious award? Well, he was up for some competition to start as Patrick slept through two alarms with the jet lag, but it started with him smashing a glass in the office. He thought he'd lost a ice cleat in the snow, but turned out he'd put two on the same foot when reattaching them. Then as we got back to the apartments, while dropping stuff off in my room he realised he was missing his key-card and wallet. After a frantic search of his bag we decided one possibility is he left them both in his room, and so we asked his reception (see future article) to get them to let him in his room. We managed that, but no wallet or card was found. After searching his bag again we found the key-card but not his wallet. After freezing his cards (luckily can easily do that now), we left for the pub, but checked with my reception, and he had dropped his wallet there in the morning. So in the end all was well!

Day 1 - Arriving

As so many people at work have asked for me to keep them up-to-date on my teaching trip to Kazakhstan, I thought I would start a 'blog' to keep everyone updated on the experience. Not sure we'll manage every day, as its going to get very busy.
So after months of planning the course, we (Patrick, Eamonn, and I) have travelled out to Astana in-preparation for the live sessions starting on Monday. The flights went smoothly, right up until the point that my bag didn't appear... Fortunately, it was found a couple hours later and I have all my luggage! It was an interesting view from the plane seeing the large ice-covered plane around Astana, with no obvious settlements/roads/etc, but then a city appear (very different to the UK).

The view from the plane on approach to Astana.

We were met by some members of the Cardiff University - Kazakhstan team here, who have been amazing, driving us from the airport (plus a second trip later), preparing our apartments, and getting us online with the local apps. We made it in to the building to and spent most of the day meeting all the staff members and some of the students.

Our arrival at the Cardiff University - Kazakhstan building (featuring Patrick in the foreground)

I also had a chance to pop-in to Vince's session (my course co-lead) on group work and using python to plot/fit data. I couldn't help but add some tongue-in-cheek comments to one or two of the menti questions (possibly one about downside of group work being having to attend many Univeristy management meetings...). The students seem engaged, and it was good to see them.

One of the scientific thinking 'live' sessions with Vince teaching on group work.

That's it for today, we did go out for dinner, but then it was an early night after travelling over-night to get here. Not sure how many of these posts I'll manage to create, but I'll try to keep people updated!