Arrived safely this morning in Almaty, Kazakhstan. As we were landing you could see the massive Tian Shan mountains that border the city; a mountain range at the western edge of China. The snow-capped mountains are visible from almost everywhere it seems. Almaty appears to be a very "Soviet-looking" city with ugly, grimy buildings that look in need of repair. I base this solely on our ride in from the airport because once we got to our very nice hotel (the Intercontinental), we were so tired that we haven't left. We got lucky and were able to get hotel rooms at 9am instead of at 2. Hotel is enormous and has all the amenities (except 2 hour wifi cards but I was able to get one that's good for 1/2 hour). We're astonished by how expensive everything is. While we were waiting for our rooms to be ready we went to have breakfast. Turns out it was $40/per person! Ok it was a great buffet, but I doubt I'll be seeing it again. Diet Cokes are $8 in the mini-bar. Basically Scott and I have done nothing but clean up, sleep and read. Scott went downstairs and ran into Larry who had gotten directions to a store and was going to investigate dinner options for this evening. So I will write more soon but getting access to internet may be a bit difficult. Tomorrow we join the group and have our first day of touring.
You paint a compelling picture, can't wait to visit K.
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