Kara-Balta

Beans at the Bazaar
Originally uploaded by emjanero.

Kara-Balta, Krygyzstan is about 30km from the Kazakshtan border and about an hour's drive north of Bishkek. This was one of our research sites. The pictures in this set about primarily from the market.

Some pictures

Oh yeah, and you can go on over to Beth's blog:Less Rest to see some pics of making friends with some soldiers from the Kyrgyz army.

Getting here

(Ah the Internet, how I miss you when you are rare. I'm in Bishkek on my last day and actually have Internet that I can use for more than a drive by email check or essential email to our most wonderful travel helper(s) back in the states.)

So, some highlights on getting here:
* We had 45 minutes to make our connecting flight in New York, which after various random and unexplained delays and the untruth of "we'll make up time in the air" we had 7 minutes, that's right 7 minutes to make the connection. Luckily I was traveling with mark, our undergrad RA who is 20 and can run like the wind. We just made the flight, they pretty much close the doors behind us. There was much high-fiving. There was one extra high-five since we were unsure of the culture appropriateness of said American celebratory displays for the rest of the trip.
* After our sprint and close call at the terminal, we ended up sitting on the tar mac for 45 minutes at JFK cued up with 700 other flights waiting to take off. I guess it was rush hour.
* A 6 hour lay over in Istanbul was passed by using the free wifi, drinking coffee, and browsing the super high end stores in the international mall/terminal. We met up with Professor Beth and killed some more time before heading to the gate for our flight to Bishkek. Well first the gate that was on the monitor, then the gate it was changed too, then finally to the correct one, where we did a little project brainstorm before getting on the Turkish Air flight to Bishkek.
* Our flight to Bishkek was long, but I managed to spend a good chunk of it standing at the back to the plane chatting with Beth which was fun. Also the flight attendants on Turkish (all male) were super charming and friendly and shared their fancy moisturizing lotions with us.
* We got a little evening flight travel kit which included things like slipper socks, a toothbrush and teeny toothpaste, and the first of what would be many I would encounter: the pervasive shoehorn.
* We arrived in Bishkek, local time 1:20 am or so. We deplaned and waited in the somewhat chaotic line in passport control before filling out some custom forms printed in Russian where we pieced together what was supposed to be written on each line from friendly strangers.
* Next it was time to wait for the luggage. The baggage carousel went round and round and as everyone started to retrieve their luggage, I started to have that sinking feeling. And as the carousel stopped turning, my suspicion was confirmed, my bag had somehow missed one of the flights. I'm guessing our close call in NY. I had to report the bag lost where I was told, we dont' know where it is, here is phone number, call everyday. I was not the only one in this predicament. Several American men also seemed to be missing their bags. From what I could gather, there guys were here in Bishkek to work on the base. The Manas Airport in Bishkek runs double duty as an airbase for the American military. This would not be the only signs we would see of the interest in this region.
* After meeting up with the driver who would take us to the hotel for our first night we speed along the quiet freeway on the way into town. We checked it, split a beer and went to sleep. It was 4am local time, a full two days after leaving Seattle.


Travel summary
Total flights: 3
Hours on airplanes: 23
Hours in airports: 11
Total travel time (door to door): 36 hours
Timezone difference: 13 hours

20,000 miles

Well, 20,013 to be exact.

My flight path.

Things that are obsolete

So tomorrow I leave for the big trip. I'm just about packed. Spend most of today doing errands, sitting in traffic, iteratively packing (unpacking) and repacking.

Two observations on today.

What the hell is Radio Shack for? Everytime I've been to that place in the past year or so I've found that the staff is woefully uninformed, stock is shoddy, and they almost always kind of have what I need, but then don't. I was looking for two things: multipacks of mini DV tapes for our digitial video camera, they had one packs and they were pretty spendy. The second thing I needed that they didn't have was a cheap digital watch with an alarm. This also coincides with things that might be obsolete. How many of you have watches that you wear/use on a daily basis? I use my cell phone to tell me what time it is (and as an alarm). Since I'm going to a place where my phone won't work I needed a back up plan.

So Radio Shack did not have a cheap digital watch plus alarm. They did have a watch mind you, but it had a talking feature. That's right no alarm, but you could record your voice on it and have it talk to you. I mean seriously, is this a feature that the product team was like: I know - a talking watch...it's like the watch of the future!

Anyway, I found a cheap one over at a drug store and it looks like crap but does the job. The DV tapes I found at a electronics type of store where the 5 bored employees were playing video golf on a widescreen TV. I wonder what things I'll see in Kyrgyzstan that will remind me how ridiculous this entire expreience has been.

I'm off tomorrow, will try and post from literally the other side of the world (well Northern part that is) if I can.

Things that are obsolete

Gov-licious

A new improved and lovely looking version of Usability.gov just launched. A great resource!

This is the thing that is really cool, the step by step process visual.

Some good advice...

Lately when planning various events (weddings, international trips, what to have for lunch, etc.), I've found it helpful to try and think about what I haven't thought to ask. The best technique I've come up with is to ask people, what other questions do people like me ask you, which usually yields totally cool things I would never had thought to ask, or just hilarious stories.

I had a consulatation at the travel clinic at King County Public Health to get shots and helpful advice. The RN was very cool and we chatted about travel, my research, her daily train ride, etc. It was a nice exchange. At the end, I asked her what other questions do people like me usually ask that I haven't. She said none, I'd asked all the standard ones. But she summed up all her travel advice into this handy phrase that I'll share with you:

Don't get bit, Don't get hit, and Don't eat shit.

So to the main problems of travel: animal bites, car accidents and eating food that hasn't been properly cooked or stored. Handy huh? Thanks friendly public health nurse!

Some notes from your editor...

I'm posting a link to this for Matthew an editor supreme. At quiz night last night (3rd place, woo! go Team Pourquoi? Pourquoi?) Matthew couldn't resist editing our responses before they were turned into the Uptight Dictator Quiz Host. Because he's an editor, that's what he does.

I'm also posting it cause Elizabeth does a killer Axl Rose imitation.
And now...for the post itself:

Notes on "Sweet Child O' Mine," as Delivered to Axl Rose by His Editor.

hallelujah!

Olympia recently got its own little craigslist.

A subsite off seattle's but still, i'm so excited.

To plov or not to plov

So, as many of you know I'm about to embark on a pretty exciting adventure to the country of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. If you don't know where it is, here's a little map.

It's south of Kazakhstan, West of China and North of Tajikistan. So now that we have that all cleared up.

The reason for my trip is to work with a research team from the University of Washington to conduct in depth interviews and a method known as design ethnography. The whole point of why we're going is to get to try and talk to and understand the people who live in this country (and region) so we can see how technology can be deployed (if it should be at all) in a way that is relevant, appropriate, and helpful instead of harmful.

Much of our research relies on the generosity of people to talk to us (and our locally based researchers). To be generous with their time, their willingness to answer our questions. We, as researchers much try honor their thoughts, opinions and culture. So as you can imagine, I could talk in great detail about what we'll do and what we hope to learn and the challenges of trying to do this research. But I'll save that for another time (or place).

What I've been struggling with for the past couple of weeks and this trip and looked more and more like it would happen, is this: my vegetarianism.

So I've been one form or another of vegetarian since about 1989 (my how time flies). Most of that time being Pesco-Ovo-Lacto, which is a pretty flexible form, but as of the more recent time the Pesco has swam off to the sea. So it's been no animals at all. I managed to stay meat free the year I was living in Prague, which wasn't an easy feat and required an unfortunate amount of Smažený Sýr, pictured here.

Don't get me wrong a slab of fried of cheese is nothing to mock and is darn tasty - in moderation. Think of this dish as one enormous mozzarella stick. But after it being the only vegetarian option on the menu at most traditional places I got a bit tired of it. Not to mentioned that it's typically served with potatoes that are fried. There's probably a pretty good reason that I didn't lose any weight when I lived there. Well there was that and the fact that the gym I went to had a smoking section (no kidding).

Anyway, while thinking about my upcoming travels and especially the nature of our work, I was thinking about the prospects of traveling with my vegetarianism. I've come to the conclusion that it's just not feasible. If I was traveling for pleasure, I might consider it. But the fact that our work may very well take us into people's homes and the culture is well known for it's rituals and exchange of gifts. I can't imagine being the one American asshole to say, "no thanks, I don't eat meat" when offered the gift of a meal in someone's home. So I'm taking a culturally sensitive hiatus from not eating meat.

We are now in the time of the meat-ramp-up, cause as Jeremy (the more recent vegetarian convertee among amoung us) insists, you don't want to get sick while you're over there from eating meat for the first time in 15 years. So there have been two related meat ups since the decision was made. On July 4th I had a hamburger (it was from whole foods, so at least it was responsible meat), and the first bite or two were actually kind of amazingly good - but that was about all I could take. Much to Sass' delight since she got the remaining portion.

Meat up number two was last night, when we visited what will now be referred to as the most delicious place in Seattle. It's a Vietnamese restaurant in the International District called Tamarind Tree. Holy mother of nearly departed meat eating savior, it was a celebration of taste. I'm not sure how many types of meat I laid to rest but it was considerable (also noting that they have tons of vegetarian stuff so even when the meat-off is off, i can go back). I also think if you wrap anything plus cilantro, basil, lettuce, fish sauce in rice paper you know you are in for a tasty treat. This morning I think my temple (aka body) was complaining a bit. It felt like I had three orders of czech fried cheese in my stomach. But I persevered and the horror of eating something smarter than Sassy (since I ate pork) subsided.

Anyway, so I plov when I'm in Kyrgyzstan. I imagine that I can revert to veggie ways when I'm
in Italy. But you know, I've never had prosciutto and if someone offers me some, it would be just rude to refuse. Right?

Olympic Peninsula

Breakfast : Click on the pic to see more images from the weekend.

One of my favorite places in the whole darn world is the Olympic Peninsula. Last weekend we had the fun of circumnavigating the whole thing (or at least pretty much the whole thing minus the Bremerton back to Oly part - we chose instead to take the ferry for the last hour).

On night one, we camped at Lake Quinault at Falls Creek Campground and explored that area that we've both been to many times before. The next day was spent driving around Lake Quinault and stopping to explore some of the wilderness on the way. Next up it was a quick stop at Clayloch where 101 meets the Ocean. With the holiday weekend it was pretty packed, well for the Pacific in Washington.

After a short stop, we continued on to the Hoh River where we meet up with John, Espy, Jenn and Colby for a day by and in the river, which was pretty amazing. We camped that night and understood the complexities and challenges of a 6 person game of Chinese Checkers until darkness foiled our plans.

The next day we took off pretty early cause we have several places we wanted to see before returning to Seattle. We stopped in a little town called Beaver for breakfast. They had this enormous chainsaw carved sculpture of a Beaver in the front lawn of the restaurant. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture to share with you. I really am.

Next up we drove the winding road past Crescent Lake (where there had been a 3 acre fire the night before, so we hoped it wasn't Kevin and Wendy who were responsible). Stopped at the Crescent Lake Lodge and the Olympic Park Institute to take in the scenery and surrounds. It was amazingly beautiful and calm there.

From there it was a pitstop at a gas station/espresso bar where the woman working told me with all seriousness and sincerity that she thought it was impossible to ice and americano. So I had to be the asshole to say, "well it's like a regular americano but with cold water instead of hot -- plus ice." I noted she had to get ice from the back room, so she probably spit in it, but it still tasted good. Later in the car, I felt that perhaps a better retort would have been: it's an Americano, not an Ameri-can't-o. I wonder if she would have thought that was funny. Probably not.

Our next plan was to hit a couple state parks on the east side of the Hood Canal. Just so happens that the day after we get back the Seattle Times runs an article on several of these parks. We stopped at Scenic Beach State Park and Kitsap Memorial State Park. Both had great views but were teaming with families, reunions, wedding guests, bikers and the like. They were really nice but we just sort of breezed through.

Later that day we took the ferry from Bremerton which looked like a ghost town on the holiday weekend, sure a ghost town with craploads of enormous battleships, but a ghost town none the less. It was an hour back to Seattle and a nice feeling to drive off the ferry and be home 10 minutes later.

I think I could spend an entire year on the peninsula, exploring all the little towns, hiking, following the rivers, but that'll have to wait for some other time.