Author Archives: moonbar5

Independence Day 2021 in Bishkek marked the 30th year since its independence from the USSR. The day began with a parade along the main street through the government quarter which I unfortunately missed (it included tanks, so I’m extra sad I couldn’t see it – there’s always Victory Day, at least), then followed that withContinue reading “August 31st, 2021”

On the evening of August 29th, I decided to take a bit of a walk around the city, with the goal of seeing what was going on the main square during the leadup to Independence Day on the 31st. The weather was perfect for a stroll and I enjoyed spending some time just snapping photos.Continue reading “August 29/30th, 2021”

It has been a full week since my arrival as of today! Strangely, it feels like either no time at all has passed, or it’s been ages – my body can’t decide yet. I ended up having a migraine last night around bedtime anyway, so I didn’t upload anything about the 27th. It’s just asContinue reading “August 27/28th, 2021”

While the weather is still hot, I haven’t really been seeing too much new in the city yet. I have plans in the works to go visit the smaller of the two main city markets this weekend, though. Given the sunshine, however, I figured I could take some pictures of my daily surroundings while it’sContinue reading “August 26, 2021”

First, today’s adventures in food: we went to the Uighur restaurant around the corner today, not really caring about the line because on Wednesdays, we don’t have class. We had recommendations from people on what to order, but we only got our food thanks to a very kind woman waiting for her own order whoContinue reading “August 25, 2021”

Today, the weather was mercifully much cooler. Breakfast involved homemade estate currant jam on bread – delicious. Classes went well, after which my friends and I decided to try out the nearby Uighur/Kyrgyz restaurant, Cafe Faiza which has been recommended by multiple local people… but it was crowded and we were hungry. We instead foundContinue reading “August 24th, 2021”

Today was again quite hot, so I didn’t do any exploring. I did have my first day of classes though, which went well all things considered. The final class of the day for me is speaking practice, and I found the goal of today’s lesson to be quite easy (to the surprise of nobody, I’mContinue reading “August 23rd, 2021”

On my second day in Bishkek, the third member (Kathy) of our three-person program arrived, and Jacob and I showed her the area that we had already seen of the city. We ate lunch at a delicious spot called Chicken Star, which would fit right in in Portland’s food scene. My only complaint was thatContinue reading “August 22nd, 2021”

It was 90 degrees on my first day, during which I chose to do some small exploration with one of two other people in the program, Jacob (another Portland native). We walked from our home base area straight up Sovietskaya Street, then found some nice park blocks that sort of resemble those in downtown Portland,Continue reading “August 21st, 2021”