About

Our final days in Asia have finally arrived after an incredibly short, experience-rich, five months! We flew through Kazakhstan, jet through Georgia and rocketed through the wonders of Turkey. The Earthbound Astronauts are preparing to briefly part but not before completing their time in Asia with style. The adventure continues! To listen to the podcast click here! Almaty, Kazakhstan - June 1st – June 6thWe arrived in Kazakhstan from Kyrgyzstan really unsure of what to expect. Unfortunately the movie ‘Borat’ had tainted our ideas about this formidably mysterious country. When we arrived in Almaty, the biggest city in Kazakhstan, we were incredibly surprised. Almaty was originally the capital of Kazakhstan, and for some unknown reason, the government decided that a city in the middle of nowhere, Astana, would be the capital. Coming from the concrete jungles that were Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan, we were amazed to see that Almaty was one of the most revitalizing cities we’ve visited yet. A city that was beautifully positioned beneath snow-capped mountains, a sight that was becoming increasingly familiar throughout our travels in Central Asia. We used our time in Almaty to recharge our depleting motivation. Originally we had big plans to venture away from the city into the surrounding wilderness, however these were ‘dampened’ by a torrential downpour, flooding both the city streets and our ambition. Seeing this as a sign, we decided to spend our remaining days exploring the city. This involved visiting the museum to discover that Tuesday was the only day it was closed, determining Kazak kebabs were a godsend and realising vodka was the most prominent and possibly cheapest beverage available. Finally feeling rejuvenated; we were ready to progress onto the newly founded capital. Astana, Kazakhstan - June 7th – June 10thArriving in Astana by train, we were completely disorientated by our lack of city knowledge and the resulting sterility produced by a patchwork of contrasting architectural styles. After catching a public bus and arriving in the vicinity of the only hostel we knew about, we spent the better part of an hour deciphering the hostel address, a highly elusive residential apartment. Exploring the city with a maniacally peculiar Ukrainian character, we gawked at the conflicting architectural anomalies that are precariously placed around the capital. A very peculiar aspect of the city was the lack of street based restaurants replaced by a large number of malls and their subsequent food courts. We were lucky enough to make a Kazak friend in our hostel, a relationship that was purely based on our mutual use of Google translate, a very interesting and surprisingly lucrative medium for building a friendship. A few days in Astana were more then enough for us to comfortably farewell Kazakhstan. We boarded a plane to the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, which afforded us the melancholy experience of staying a night in an airport during a layover in Almaty. Tbilisi, Georgia - June 11th & 12th JuneCasey and I fearfully observed Tbilisi reveal itself through the plane window, another potential concrete abyss. Wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into, we nervously caught the bus into the city centre towards our hostel. Probably due to our partial prejudice, we mistook the grand ‘Freedom Square’ for a random roundabout that had a very similar symmetry to the actually phenomenal attraction. After searching for our hostel for two hours we eventually realised we were on the wrong side of the river, obviously our navigational abilities hadn’t improved. When we found our hostel, it was positioned in a surprisingly beautiful cobblestoned area of the city. It turned out that Tbilisi was a very westernised city with a very good mixture of both modern and historical buildings, our first true introduction to Europe. The city didn’t have too much to see from a tourist’s perspective, the two main sights revolved around an old fortress, which acted as