Weekend

Friday night my co-worker Malika and her mom were kind enough to take me to a dance performance to see some Uzbek dancing.

We went to a restaurant called "Bahor". The place itself was gorgeous in the grand, soviet way of many buildings and places here.

The show ended up being tailored for foreigners and tourists. Instead of local Uzbek dancers, we ended up getting plastic looking Russian girls wearing very little clothes that sparkled way too much to be local, traditional costumes who did tacky renditions of "dancing". It was terrible. More shocking than there, there was very little feeling to their movements or expression, void of any emotion, and all you could smell was sex.

I was revolted.

I realized this is why you avoid the touristy places for foreigners if you want to experience the real feeling of a culture.

And I was surprised I had gained enough of a sense of the local culture to discern the real from the canned. It felt terrible.

But dinner itself was wonderful as I filled an unknown craving and had western style lamb chops with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables.

Saturday I met up with Jamshid, an almost colleague who I have been in touch with over the last year.

Despite mostly having chatted online and only spoken on the phone once, I could always tell he was such a gentleman and had the sweetest personality.

He was gracious enough to take me to the local mountains. On our way we stopped at the side of the road at an outdoor, no name restaurant run by a mother and her daughters. I tried this incredible yogurt soup with fresh herbs, corn and barley. I'm not a yogurt fan, but in the scorching heat this soup tasted incredibly cooling and fresh. We also had these samosa type things with potatoes and onions in it, and then some freshly made rasberry-esque fruit juice.

The place didn't have a refrigerator so instead, they poured cold water into a concrete square and stored their drinks there. Whenever a customer ordered a drink they would pull it out and serve it.

Nature at its finest.

We went through a hotel in the mountain where there was a pool with an in incredible backdrop of the lake. I saw more people than usual dressed in the local traditional Uzbek garb of skull caps and long tie-dyed type dresses. We walked to the lake and waded in knee-high. I told him I could seriously live there.

Outside in between the pool and the lake there's an outdoor area fenced in with bamboo. In the center there's a bar and some speakers. This was the 'discotech' at night.

On our way back I had a craving for Korean food. We went to a restaurant, "Sim Chon" with his friend. The restaurant had a dj booth and dance floor. I had trouble ordering as the menu was in Russian. The woman next to me suddenly spoke some Korean and helped me order some of the most amazing banchan dishes. I was stunned she could speak Korean. She said she had taken some classes at a Korean school in Tashkent. She was shocked I was from America. Hilariously, while I was eating she turned and took a picture of me. I was suddenly the very curiosity that I had found all these "go-ryo-in's" to be. Go-ryo-in is a term the Soviet Koreans call themselves, which is different from what Koreans from Korea call themselves, "han-guk saram", which is different from Koreans born in America are referred to, "(jae-mi) kyopos", which is different from what Koreans born in Japan are called, "jae-il kyopos". So even amongst Koreans spread out throughout the world, for some reason they've had to classify themsleves into different categories.

We exchanged numbers, her name turned out to be Elisa, and she told me about a Korean outdoor bazaar where they sell Korean food.

After dinner Jamshid brought me back to the hotel. The nicest thing about him was despite it being the first time we met, we spoke as though we had been friends forever. There was such a sincerity and connection despite having had such different lives and having grown up in different countries. What amazed me so much was how progressive his thinking is. I haven't even come across many men in America who were as thoughtful and liberal as he.

I came back and called my co-worker Bekzhod. We made plans to go see the World Cup game as Sweden was playing Spain and Russia was playing Greece. He had lived and gone to school in Sweden for 2 years, and Russia is the closest team Uzbekistan roots for. Hence, it was a very important night.

While waiting for him outside my hotel, another Uzbek-Korean woman suddenly asked me in Korean if I was Korean. We were so happy to have met each other and also exchanged numbers. This woman was named Rosa. You'll see the significance to this meeting later on.

We went to 3 bars before we found a decent place that would take us. It was an outdoor area with a huge tv, and I had surprisingly good Russian beer, though I forget what the name was. We had pistachios, cheese, and some other nuts and mixed with the exhilaration of watching a game, being outdoors during a summer night, and being so relaxed on a weekend, I had such a good time.

Sunday I decided to go to Oloy Bazaar near my hotel after my scary attempt at Chorsu bazaar the previous. I felt so proud to buy some fruit. After Malika's mom had given me apricots the last week I was craving more. I bought some apricots, plums, nectarines, and cherries, and ate some cake at a patisserie in the bazaar.

I came back to the hotel and felt restless. I remembered wanting to check out the Alisher Navoi theater for ballet. Despite the performance having started already, I quickly got into an overpriced cab and went.

The theater was gorgeous. Huge, grand, ornate with beautiful chandeleirs and ceilings, I was so glad I pushed myself to go alone. Ironically, the woman gave me the same ticket as another girl who was already in my seat. However, fate will have it that this was another Korean girl traveling solo, but this time from Korea. We were so happy to be able to communicate in a way that can only be appreciated when you've been solo in a foreign country for a while. She said she was going to check out a Korean restaurant that night which ironically I had been meaning to try, "Han Guk Kwan", or rather "zan guk khan" as is cryrillic-ized.

While my friends think I'm uber adventurous to come out here, I am nothing compared to another species of travellers: the backpackers.

This breed can wing it on the moment without a place to stay, face last minute police and visa issues with a calmness and coolness I could never fathom, and face any travel issue that comes their way with a bold confidence and true sense of free spiritedness.

I met her and 2 of her housemates from where she was staying, called the "guest house", which I gather is similar to a home for foreigners. One guy was from France and he had a year off which apparently is mandatory in France every 6 years. He decided to use this sabbatical to, *get this*, bike. He BIKED from France to here. I was amazed. He had already biked through Italy, Iran, Tajikistan, and yet that evening was his first night trying Korean food.

Another woman was from Japan and had majored in middle eastern and Indian history. She knew how to say mosquito repellant in Hindi, Farsi, Uzbek, and Russian. Yuri, the girl I met at the ballet theater, is about to go to Iran for a month and they began to advise her about mosquito repellent and the lack of atm/cash machines and hence the need to carry currency with her.